There's Fallen, and there's fallen at 10:37 PM

So, I got Silverfall: Earth Awakening. Yes. The one I'm supposed to play after finishing the first one. Either that or start with a level 45 character, and customize it myself.

These are the kind of things that I would have done years ago, when I was still a little shrimp, an urchin in the gaming world. Not caring about chronology and what not. But, finding the original was very troublesome. And the game itself doesn't seem to be something oh-so-great- something that I absolutely should play. So, I took a very casual approach to the game. Something to satisfy my RPG wants for a bit and then move on to something better- like Drakensang, maybe?

There aren't really any classes to choose from, instead you customize as you see fit. Earth Awakening however offers 6 presets for the character to choose from. The Hunter, who specializes in ranged weapons. The other choices were a Berserker, who's a melee specialist, an Assassin, who specializes in two handed melee (i think), with fast attack speed and high poison damage, another was the Paladin, a melee fighter with some magical abilities, an elemental mage who specializes in elemental magic. An "Artisan" and ... what now? Shadow Mage or something. Not being able to give a fuck about it, I forgot what they did.

For simplicity's sake, and to see if I would actually be able to play the game, I chose Hunter, seeing as how I wanted to shoot goblins, orcs and other fantastical creatures. Yeah. So. Not really what it turned out to be.

My poor 8800GS couldn't handle the high settings I set the game to, so there was some chopping around. But, that's probably not the game's fault. What was the games' fault was the lack of smooth controls and a good combat system. The controls were utterly annoying. You could either move the character with WASD or the mouse, and I found it comfortable with neither. Using the WASD was utter pain.

Click, click, click -- that's the way to kill enemies in your way. Diablo? That's mostly what you had to do. Click, click, and click. Fable? Same shit. (Except you could block.) Remember slaying that first red little fallen in Diablo 2? Satisfying, wasn't it? The grunt it made as its blood pooled under its body on the green grass, the sound of 1, 2 or 3 gold pieces popping out of the little fucker, and then you looted that shit.

What happened then? You said: Bring it on, you fallen fucks. Bring it on so that you can taste the cold steel of my katar! Bring it on so that my hammer can crush your fucking skulls. Bring it on so that I can burn you into little specks of cinder. That's what happened.

And Silverfall? I can sum the whole game up with just a single word. "Meh".
It's my fault, I suppose. The reviews weren't all that great, and of course Jitu kinda warned me that it was probably 'one of those games'. I said to myself, "It's steampunk. Maybe, it would be cool enough that I could tolerate it's little follies."

Sadly, it WAS one of those games- and a pretty boring one, too. So, there. My thirst for second-rate Action RPGs have been quelled, not in the way I'd hoped, but it worked.
And thus I move on to better things. Steampunk isn't always good.

Chaaaarlie, we're going on a TinyAdventure! at 5:11 AM

That Charlie the Unicorn thing was one sinister video...

Anyway. I'm more or less a regular user of facebook. Find me here.

Anyone who used or uses facebook knows about the splurging amount of applications and what nots that are out there for everyone to abuse. And so everyone does. There have been some games that I've actually enjoyed playing. Just a little bit. There was the Who's got the biggest brain? thing. And Jetman which I played for a total of 10 minutes spanning over a few days. It got boring pretty fast.

Then there was, erm, wait wait... erm... ... RIGHT! Geo Challenge!

But, they got boring, too.

Now. I like DnD. I like it a whole lot. I really do. So, when I saw one of my friends playing TinyAdventures, what was a king to do-- I mean, what was I to do? I was to bloody click it, of course.

The game is simple, and requires minimal action on the part of the player. You create a player, and you go on adventures. You have an inventory, and there's a shop from where you can buy items and sell loot which you find during your adventures.

How does the adventure work, then? It's narrative-based. Die rolls. You have a d20, and then your modifiers, and your buffs (your friendly wizards in the neighbourhood can buff you- each buff constitutes a bonus +1 against the difficulty checks). Depending on whether your total check is higher than the difficulty check, you either succeed in the encounter, or fail. Failing it doesn't fail the quest, though. Just gives you a measly amount of XP and gold. Succeeding gives you more XP, more gold, and often items. If you take damages during these encounters, and you don't use potions (which you can take before setting out) and your HP runs out- that's when you fail the quest. Or if your check fails against the DC of the final encounter. The encounters themselves are slightly detailed down in fun narratives.

That's pretty much it. Check the game out here.

Blah! at 9:35 PM

Circumstances prevent me from obtaining any of the listed games. :(

Action RPGs, I seek you! at 3:55 PM

In my thirst for fun, bright RPGs, action or otherwise, I've been scouring the web for signs of any titles that could do the deed, and these are the games that've caught my attention for now.

• Gothic 3
• Overlord 2
• Silverfall

I chose Gothic 3 because of the good reviews surrounding it. Somewhat similar reason for Overlord 2. Silverfall didn't have as good reviews but it's apparently set in a steampunk world. How can I resist? I can't. Not now, at least. Let's see which I get.

Other games that I will very soon devote my time to:

• NWN2: Mysteries of Westgate - This one gets top priority once my little cousins depart.
  
• Drakensang. I hear it's good. It seems interesting- I played it a bit. Though, all that plant lore jazz seems a bit too much work. Oh well.

-E

Why not? at 1:41 PM

R.I.P. Michael Jackson.

The Black Army? at 2:25 PM

Action RPGs, I miss you.

I was looking through them at wikipedia, clicking my way through any title that might be interesting. One of them was "The Black Army". Naturally, I clicked. It's still in the works, being developed and published by Fade Blue Entertainment. I googled the developer, and it came up with nothing.

Then I read what the entry had to say. Let me paste the information here:

Gameplay
The proprietary engine will incorporate Havok physics and feature destructible environments with an in-game damage effect. The developers are aiming to make the game run on a wide range of systems. The Black Army will use a custom 3D game engine in order to present an overhead view to the player. Enemies will utilize the 3D environment as well, in ways such as crawling up the side of a wall from the depths into the combat area. An enhanced quest system, a random level generator, and a random encounter generator are slated for use in order to ensure the game provides different experiences when replayed. Overall, the game will include both static and randomly generated levels. Additionally, there will be class-specific quests to go along with the main storyline quests.

So, this is relatively okay. And then the 'basic story summary' starts. This is when it gets really amusing. I paste again:

Basic Story Summary

It's back in the old days of swords and shields and a town hero was to fight off the upcoming surprise attack lead by hostile bandits but during the mix-up, he was killed by a spear through the heart. As he started to die, it started to get blurry everywhere. He saw the bandits burning the village, killing some women. But then a big beast comes out of no where from across the scene and kills everything and stomps over to the guy. As the thing stops, the guy dies. He wakes up to being almost naked on a rock in the middle of a fiery area. He doesn't know what's going on, but then the same beast from before comes up from the lava and they talk. The guy is granted his life again, if he is to work for this demon. The guy accepts, not realizing he would have to torment and destroy lives. The guy wakes up in the same spot where he died, but everything is normal. It appeared to be a dream. He doesn't have a spear in his heart, the women from before are alive, everything is lovely. For now... (! Every class and gender has its own cinematic preview for the introduction video created once you have started a new character)

And then the 'Development' entry:

Development

Development on the Black Army started on July 20th of 2008. Real life friends and over-the-internet 'pals' from the Xbox 360 were involved in the mix-up. The game was solely started by WikiPedia account, HollywoodHoncho. His Xbox Live Gamertag is HF Honcho if you ever need to contact him.

Characters There are -without a doubt- a few character classes available. There is the Berserker or commonly known as the Barbarian, the Archer, Assassin, Paladin, Corrupt Knight (only available after game completion with another class), and the Sorcerer.

The entry doesn't cite any sources, and the external links direct you to HF Honcho's website, HF Honcho's youtube profile, and HF Honcho's email address.

Clearly, the article was written by either HF Honcho himself or one of those 'over-the-internet' 'pals' from 'the Xbox 360'. Oh, well. At least, they're trying to make something very much unlike yours truly.

As an RPG fan, I will hope for the best for this group- maybe it'll be a good game, and maybe I'll like it very much. Who knows. Kudos, HF Honcho and co. And since they've said, if you need to contact him, maybe to show support? Here's his email address- honchofilms@live.com.

- E

It Shocks at 3:23 AM

Bioshock was one of the most hyped about games of the year 2007. At that time, I was running my computer on integrated graphics (yes, I know. horrible), and so couldn't play the game when it came out. I did, however, get a card some time later- and then I ran amok playing games left, right and center.

How could I miss Bioshock? Not only did it seem interesting, but it was dubbed a pseudo-RPG. An RPG set in an underwater dystopian nightmare? Thank you very much, yes I'd like to play it please.

And so my adventure begun, as I took control of Jack, whose plane just crashed into the Atlantic. Swimming to an island very close by with a lighthouse on it, I find myself in a bathysphere, soon descending into the underwater city of Rapture, the dream-creation of Andrew Ryan.It wasn't very long until Jack runs into one of the 'little sisters'. And this is where it gets somewhat disturbing.

So... I have two choices, now:
a) Drain the 'little sister' of Adam to the last drop, killing them.
b) Drain the 'little sister' of Adam only partially, and saving them.

The term presented for a) was ‘harvesting the little sisters’. For more powa’.

If you keep on 'saving' the little girls, after a point, you'll be rewarded by their keeper, Dr. Tenenbaum and the little sisters with Adam and other stuff. Sign of gratitude. So, regardless of whether you 'kill' or 'save' the girls, you get the same amount of Adam, anyway. (I've never compared- but that's my guess).

Now. Everywhere that I've read anything on Bioshock, this 'choice' has been praised alot. It's a very moral thing, apparently.

Alright, then. Let me get this straight- I have to choose between... SAVING a little girl or HARVESTING her... A dilemma, surely.

How is that supposed to be a moral conundrum, exactly? That's not a choice, but an ultimatum. Let me quote:
By turning the gatherers into Little Sisters, Levine expanded, the team created a moral choice - and that choice, in itself, informed much of his later thinking on the kind of capitalist utopia Rapture was.
"We ended up with a game where we had to confront this moral choice, rather than setting out to create that choice," Levine explained.
According to technical director Chris Kline, the Little Sisters also solved a major gameplay problem - gatherers at one point were slug-like creatures, and players tended to kill them for no reason, since "that's what you do to slug-like creatures".

Uh. So, instead of killing slug-like creatures, which is what we do to slug-like creatures, we can now kill little girls, because that's one of the things we could do to little girls... because that solved a major gameplay problem, which were the slug-like creature thing. More powa’, indeed.

"We ended up with a game where we had to confront this moral choice, rather than setting out to create that choice," Levine explained.

That makes less sense than shit. Let me repeat: You can either SAVE a little girl who looks no more than six or seven years old, or you can KILL her. Yes. Amagad, whatever shall I do.

Note to self: Be wary of games tagged with ‘morality-based storyline’.

- E

Fables of Natal at 6:44 AM

Microsoft pretty much rocked E3 with it's display of that 'ground-breaking' technology dubbed Natal. And then Peter Molyneux rocked the expo further by showcasing Project Milo. Not to mention Ricochet, and that other paint thingy going on.

I can't seem to care much about those, seeing as how I'm not an xbox 360 owner, or not care in general anyway. What I DO own however is a decent computer and a thirst for RPGs, dark or bright. I know Dragon Age and Alpha Protocol are just around the corner, and I know I'll enjoy every moment of playing those games. But, why can't Fable 2 be still out for the PC?

I don't want full motion capture avatar system or helping out little kids with their homeworks. I want to run through the woods of Albion hacking at smelly werewolves and those little goblin like creatures whose name I forgot, with my trusty sidekick of a dog and I don't even know what the little mutt looks like. I want to play a bright and fun action RPG in a big but focused world where I won't get bored because I have to walk from one side of the world to another every quest (I'm looking at you, Fallout 3). I want to find magical weapons and mysterious shrines and temples and whatever the fuck nots. That's what I want.

I. Want. Fable. 2... Please?

- E

Alex vs Jimmy at 6:30 AM

Prototype’s out. And it sure has a mean streak about it. Lots of chaos and carnage, running up buildings, jumping down from them, grabbing air conditioners and throwing them at people or vehicles, doing karate kicks on helicopters (!!), turning your hands into swords to slice and dice those annoying SWAT-like people. It seems… fun-ish.

I prefer to play Bully instead. Kicking the groins of snob-nosed jocks or dumb bullies seem to hold more appeal for me than cutting military soldiers in half, no matter how cool the premise seems. I’ve long ago realized the premise doesn’t make the game.

- E