Snowulf - Games

Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:00:00 -0800

As you may well know (perhaps from our earlier entry), Battlefield: Bad Company 2 came out last week. I've devoted most of my game playing time since then to playing the game and thought it was about time to do a review. Now some of this review of Bad Company 2 (BC2) will be a comparison to how it stands up against Modern Warfare 2 (MW2). It isn't that I believe the games are in anyway the exact same kettle of fish, but MW2 is the undeniable "big shooter" of the moment, so it is that which all other new shooters will be compared against (until something undeniably better comes out).

Let me give you the ultra short version: It is definitely an improvement over Bad Company 1. My major complaints for BC1 single player were addressed in BC2. The single player campaign of BC2 isn't long, but it is enjoyable and longer than MW2 was. The online multiplayer is also quite enjoyable and mostly major bug free (so far that I've seen). BC2's multiplayer is much different than MW2 and personally I prefer BC2. If you enjoy shooters in general and haven't bought BC2, you're missing out.

Now we get on to the long version of the review. First I'm going to cover the single player game and then I'll get into the online play.
Continue reading "Review: Battlefield: Bad Company 2"

Why we bought Battlefield: Bad Company 2

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Both John and myself have gone ahead and pre-ordered Battlefield: Bad Company 2 even though we originally had no intention of doing so. I've been seeing advertisements for the game for the last month and said "meh" to it. I had enough games to play, not enough free time, and Modern Warfare 2 has been satisfying my multiplayer needs (not that I normally multiplayer much). This was up until we actually got around to playing the demo the last week before it was shut down.

So what changed? Well first off in my research on BF:BC2, I saw a video which was showing off PC dedicated servers and game play, but more importantly their test server was named "Server of DOOM and cake". This is a server name I fully approve of. I mean, who doesn't love doom and cake? I know I do. Beyond devs with a good sense of humor, there was a demo that was enjoyable to play.

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Mass Effect 2 on first playthrough - Part 2

nospam@example.com (John) — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0800

As I mentioned yesterday, I recently beat Mass Effect 2. Today I wanted to talk about a few things, what I liked/disliked, my end game team, guns, and lastly what the "bonus" was for beating Mass Effect Galaxy (the iPod Touch/iPhone game).

Liked:

The improved combat system
The upgrade system - no more pausing mid-fight to adjust ammo types as necessary, or installing an upgrade for one weapon and moving your upgrade into another, etc, etc
The planet scanning instead of taking the Mako down to run around the planet
The heavy weapons
Three different versions of Barrier: Fortification (for more Armor), Geth Shield (for more Shield), and Barrier (for more... biotic Barrier).
No achievement/bonus/incentive for having one particular squadmate(s) for most of the game. This encouraged me to try out everyone.

Disliked:

New weapons weren't always better than the old ones. Specifically, I went from the semi-automatic sniper rifle to a bolt action (that looked like an M107). It did more damage, but the constant reload was annoying. More on this below.
Only being able to use one "power" at a time. In the previous game, I enjoyed being a biotic because I could fire off multiple abilities at a time.
This one comes from Jon: no measure of what your squad is composed of; in the previous game, you had 3 bars letting you know how much Tech, Combat, and Biotic prowess your chosen squad had. This goes inline with your squadmates not really having classes in this game (thought it was fairly obvious what they were in most cases).

End Game Team:
When you begin your assault on the collector ship you need to pick a Tech Specialist and a leader for the second team (Fire Team).
I used Tali as my Tech Specialist (though I've heard Legion works as well).
Miranda as my Fire Team Leader (heard that Jacob or Garrus also work).
For the next section you need a Biotic to shield you, a Diversion team leader, and an escort for the survivors.
I used Samara as my biotic (I've heard Jack works as well).
Miranda once more headed up my second team.
I used Jacob to get everyone back to the boat.

Since everyone in my party was loyal, I suffered no deaths.

Guns, guns, guns! Someone over on the bioware forums had this to say about the effects of guns on resistances/armor/shields/barriers: Mass Effect 2 Gameplay Data. Useful bit (of course I didn't find it till AFTER I finished playing). Basically, if an ammo/gun type says it is good at something it does at least full damage to that (usually 1.5x damage though).
Now, far and away this is the most useful bit I have found, a Weapon Chart by Arthelinus which shows weapon stats for... EVERY weapon in the game, including the guns that came in other editions (Collector's and Digital Deluxe). It also points out the gun that is only available if you are playing on Hardcore or Insane difficulty.

Last, but not least... Did you play and beat Mass Effect Galaxy? Wondering what the bonus is? I finally found the answer via a post on the IGN Forums:

Not too far from the entrance to Afterlife in Omega, you bump into a Salarian named Ish who asks for some help finding a pair of datapads. If you have Jacob and/or Miranda with you, you get some dialogue that references their dealings with Ish in Mass Effect Galaxy.

I didn't realize this was the "reward" before because I never had Jacob or Miranda with me while completing his mission.

That's right, the bonus is some random conversation about an NPC. Congratulations.
So yeah, it happens toward the beginning of the game, after you have gotten Archangel and/or Mordin, you see him outside Afterlife and he asks you to find him some datapads. If you have both Miranda and Jacob they will talk about it. Seems pretty darn lame to me, but such is life.

Mass Effect 2 on first playthrough - Part 1

nospam@example.com (John) — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Beat Mass Effect 2 recently and managed to get all but 3 achievements: Insanity - Beat the game on Insanity difficulty; Overload Specialist - Use Overload to destroy a shield 25 times (only did this 22 times); Warp Specialist - Use Warp to destroy a Barrier 25 times (only did this a few times). I probably could have gotten Overload and Warp, but didn't realize that you actually had to finish off the Shield/Barrier with Overload/Warp in order for it to count. That and not many enemies had Barrier.

I ended up putting in just over 40 hours in my first playthrough.

At the end it tells you that you can keep playing and will now have the option to use this character for your next playthrough (basically New Game +). I had already done well... everything so I just ran around listened to the conversations and then decided to start a new game to see what carries over.

What carries over:

Level/Experience
Guns - both Heavy and Regular
Skills - Your skills look exactly the same as how you left them on the save before you imported, minus your bonus skill (Tip: Use Retrain Powers before you save and import, that way you can reallocate everything when you start).
Armor - All the armor pieces and sets you have are still there
Bonus Skills - Each of the squadmates that were loyal to you had a bonus skill that you could use, you get to pick which you want when start a new game

What doesn't carry over:

Paragon/Renegade Points - This was the biggest disappointment to me
Upgrades - Anything you researched will need to be researched again
Money/Resources - I finished the game with over 50k Element Zero, 300k Iridium, 250k Platinum and Palladium, and 44k Credits - all gone. However, you do start with 50k of each mineral and 200k credits.
Squadmates/Loyalties - Not surprising that you don't get your buddies as getting them was a large part of the game, or that they aren't still loyal

Since I beat the game at Level 30 (which is the level cap), I don't know if I'll do another playthrough as that character. Yeah, I still need to beat the game on Insane mode and having a fully leveled character will help with that, but I'd rather try out a different character class. I was an Infiltrator and rarely used my Class Ability (Cloak), though the time slowdown when zooming in with the Sniper Rifle was great. I'm thinking of being a Sentinel next, that way I have both Overload and Warp on my character.

Any readers played/playing/beaten Mass Effect 2? What class did you choose and did you like it?

Tomorrow's post will contain some more thoughts on Mass Effect 2, specifically, the composition of my End Game Team and how I kept everyone alive!

Bafflingly stupid programming & error reporting

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Last night I was playing Star Trek Online for the first time in a few days. I played a good couple of hours before the game took a dump on me. After they got over the initial hurdles of the launch, the game has been relatively smooth to play so I've been happy. Plus the problem occurred during a load from one zone to another after a quest was completed, so I didn't "lose" anything. I got a message saying that I was "Disconnected From Server", but it doesn't give me any options to do anything about it (like quit, or reconnect). Being the good little QA minion that I am, I like to report these type of issues to the developers so they can fix them. I knew there was a tool that came with STO for this exact purpose. It wasn't widely published, that I know of, but I ran across the EXE once. So I dug into the folder, found and launched "crypticError.exe" and then it started to crumble.

The first screen is fairly simple, you select the running process name and explain what you did/what went wrong. Simple enough; I did so then it started collecting data. Great, after about 10 minutes I came back to find it still uploading a dump. I thought this was a little odd so I looked closer. The "dump" was over 1 GIGABYTE in size, which corresponded directly to the exact size in RAM the game was taking up. It was uploading the ENTIRE game's RAM state. Now, don't get me wrong, I understand how that can be useful... but this is a VIDEO GAME on a CONSUMER'S machine. You launch the thing and it is taking up over 300MB of RAM. Even on my go go speedy DSL line, it was going to take about an hour and a half to upload the entire dump. My DSL is also fast, and uncapped. What about those people who have 1.5meg lines, and have bandwidth limits.

Seeing things like this just blow my mind. It wasn't like I clicked some checkbox that said "Upload over 1GB of RAM state", because you don't have any checkboxes to hit. Plus, I hate to say this, but there is no damn reason for the error reporter to upload the entire RAM state. Why does one need to upload all the texture data? Report the file names loaded into memory and the checksums. If a checksum doesn't match, then that could have been the culprit.

It is safe to say that shitty design like this is why some error reporting tools never get used. I wouldn't be surprised if the devs were actually shocked the first time anyone let this tool run it's full course (provided anyone has been that dumb).

Mass Effect 2 - The First Hour

nospam@example.com (John) — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Mass Effect 2 came out yesterday.

Jon and I both preordered long ago and were quite happy to receive our release day deliveries from Amazon (Prime, FTW).

I have only played an hour or two thus far but here's what I think, and yes there will be spoilers.
Continue reading "Mass Effect 2 - The First Hour"

Lifetime game subscription - Is it worth it?

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Recently, I've been playing the Star Trek Online open beta. During this time they announced the availability of 12 month subscriptions and "lifetime subscriptions". I understand why they do this from a business perspective, after all developing an MMO costs a lot of money and if you can recoup $240 a person now instead of 18 months down the line, all the better. But what about from the player's point of view, is it worth it?

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Completed Army of Two: The 40th Day

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Last night I finished AoT:TFD for the first time. I know, it is shocking that a gamer like me would take almost a week to beat the game, but I've got a few good reasons. #1 I was only playing online with a friend when we both had the time. #2 STO took precedence. #3 It is kinda hard to go to another shooter after MW2.

Continue reading "Completed Army of Two: The 40th Day"

Review: StarCraft Ghost: Nova

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Thu, 14 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0800

Before you start, No, this is not the video game. I read StarCraft Ghost: Nova the book. It is supposed to give you some back story on the character "Nova" who was to be the heroine of StarCraft: Ghost (the video game). The book release was supposed to coincide with the game, but alas the game never materialized. Fortunately for us, the book was still written so they still went ahead and published it (way back in 2006). I realize this review is a wee bit late, but I read it and enjoyed it and thought it was worth sharing.

So the first thing that I must say is that this is not the first video game series gone book that I've read. I've read and enjoyed all of the Halo books, when I started with Halo: Contact Harvest which I've previously blogged about. This was my first book in the StarCraft realm though, and it was most definitely enjoyable.

(No Plot Spoilers)
Continue reading "Review: StarCraft Ghost: Nova"

MMO's in 2010

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0800

The waterfalls at Bastok("best" screen shot I could find)

I'm a big fan of MMOs in general, though for somewhat of an usual reason. See, as a general rule of thumb, I don't like people (Editor's note: indeed). That extends into video games doubly so because people tend to (if nothing else) act like idiots. I like playing with my friends, or if I can find them, the rare group of intelligent and skillful players. Of course, the problem with playing with your friends is that in many games, that isn't enough for a full party. Guild Wars fixed this fantastically with "henchmen", which is probably why we played it so much.

That all being said, the major reason I enjoy playing MMOs is to explore. I love them because there is just so much more to the games than regular single player editions. The content designers have so much more work to do, but tend to shine with small, but especially pleasing sights. My all time favorite sight was from the waterfall just south of (and on the way to) Bastok in FFXI. Ah, good times.

So on to the topic at hand, what MMOs are coming out that I think will be interesting, or worth playing this year:

Continue reading "MMO's in 2010"

An ode to Army of Two

nospam@example.com (John) — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 10:00:00 -0800

An ode to Army of Two

A is for Aggro
B is for Bromance
C is for Clip
D is for Deagle
E is for Equipment
F is for Friends
G is for Guns
H is for High Explosive Grenades
I is for Indestructible scenery
J is for Jeopardizing the Mission
K is for Killing the Enemy
L is for Long Distance Kills and
M is for M107 which makes them possible
N is for NCIS which had an episode involving PMCs
O is for Obayana who sells Primary Weapons
P is for Pimping your Guns
Q is for Quickly, as in move your ass quickly before it gets shot
R is for Rios
S is for Salem
T is for The 40th Day
U is for Upgrades
V is for Victory
W is for Weapon Swap - something we never use.
X is for Xbox 360 on which we play.
Y is for Yankee White - a clearance you don't have
Z is for Zealots wearing bomb packs on their chests.

Review: Star Wars: The Force Unleashed

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:00:00 -0700

A little bit ago, John spotted Star Wars: The Force Unleashed on Amazon's Video Game "Deal of the Day" for $10. While I hadn't bought the game yet, I did want it. I had heard it was good, not great, but good. $10 is a price you really can't beat, so I bought a copy (as did John). Joyfully it arrived and joyfully I played.

The first thing you get to do is run about as Darth Vader and kill everyone. Well, you're supposed to kill the Wookies, but the Storm Troopers are just so tempting. Plus you get a shiny achievement for killing storm troopers. Anyways, I'll save you the play by play and sum up the game. You play as a Vader's Apprentice, and you've got a really hot pilot (picture right). You get to follow Vader's orders, pick good or evil at the end, yada yada.

Natalie Cox, voice actor and model for your pilot 'Juno Eclipse'.

The play through on easy mode (whatever the hell they call it) (Editor's Note: It's called Sith Apprentice), was... easy. It was a lot of fun. You can do all sorts of cool combos, but basically I just button mash and use Force Lightning. Towards the end I was actually getting decent at using the combo system, but it didn't particularly matter. After I finished, I figured I'd play through on normal, as is my normal plan for all video games.

Things got dicey rather fast.

I discovered that there are a number of control issues and "interrupts" which go from a minor inconvenience on "Easy", to freaking mind blowingly problematic on "Normal". There were several points in the game in which I started getting so angry at the game I just turned off the console and threw down my controller. The control issues I could have gotten past, but some of the "interrupts" get you killed repeatedly and it makes me really, really angry. There is nothing more aggravating that watching you character get knocked over repeatedly, right in a row, and there isn't jack shit you can do to stop it. Mash buttons all you want, the game doesn't care.

Eventually, I got stuck in a boss fight I couldn't beat. I gave up. Games are supposed to be challenging, not aggravating. I may try to go back to the game someday and finish my normal play through, but not any time soon.

Would I buy the game again? No.
Did I have fun on easy? Yes.
Would I recommend it to you? Only if you like aggravating or only plan to play on easy.

Review: Halo 3: ODST

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 30 Sep 2009 10:00:00 -0700

Halo: ODST in a sentence: "God that was fun".

So I've played Halo: Combat Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, & Halo Wars. I've enjoyed them all thoroughly. Halo Wars was different from the rest, obviously, since it was an RTS, but it still had our old favorite, the Spartans. The biggest change for ODST compared to all the previous games was the fact that it lacked the Spartans, completely. There are no Spartans anywhere in this game, and I think that is a good thing. With that change comes the fact that the game mechanics are altered to deal with this.

You play through the game as "The Rookie", he is the 'strong, quiet type', so quiet that he never speaks. In fact, you never even learn his real name, I'm sure there is a purpose to that, hopefully to be revealed at some point in time. Regardless, you run around in an open-ish world, finding clues, and reliving flashbacks from other members of your ODST squad. It seems like a strange mechanic, but it is quite enjoyable. You get to run around and see the city (New Mombasa) in the day and night, and in different situations. Though at the end of the game, you are the rookie, not someone else. Since you are an ODST, and not a Spartan like the previous games, you're so much more human than before. You can't bash every enemy to death in one hit (unless you hit them from behind), you can't jump as high, you don't have shields and you're overall more vulnerable.

At first I wasn't sure what to think about this, but I read one review that summed it up well "If you play like you're still the Master Chief, you're dead". Rough translation: You've got to play this game more tactically. You can't simply run into to a large patch of enemies and expect to survive the fray. You snipe people where you can, you sneak up behind them where you can, and if all else fails, you retreat and use cover.

Overall the game is shorter. John and I played through it on easy (yes, easy, it's fun to feel like a god), cooperatively over Xbox Live and we finished it in about 4 hours. I would have enjoyed a longer game (who wouldn't enjoy more of your favorite I.P.), but I didn't feel "gypped" or that it ended too soon. I think playing through it on harder difficulties will probably take a little longer (maybe another hour, depending on how good you are). It also comes with a Firefight mode which is basically you (and optionally up to 3 friends) fighting wave after wave of Covenant. Damn, that is fun. John and I have played a few 2+ hour games of that. Technically, Firefight doesn't end till you quit or run out of lives, so it can go on for as long as you like.

In the end, I'd say it is a definite buy for any FPS or Halo fan. $60 may be steep for what some consider a "too short" game, but I can say from experience, I've spent $60 on games before and been pissed about it (::cough::COD5::cough::). ODST isn't one; I'm thrilled with the game. I was excited for ODST and I'm excited for the next game, Halo Reach. Unfortunately I've got to wait an entire year!!!

INVERTED CONTROLS - DO YOU SPEAK IT?!

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:00:00 -0700

Dear Game Design Companies,

Have you heard of inverted controls?

I'm sure you have, you put the option into all of your games. NOW PUT IT INTO YOUR GOD DAMN MOTHER FUCKING GAME DEMOS YOU STUPID FUCKS. It's one god damn fucking option, it really isn't that hard. I was raised on flight sims, and similar games that had inverted controls. In order for me to be able to play any video game, I MUST invert the Y axis. I, like many others, have it hard coded to "Pull Up". Recently, it was suggested to me that I try out the demo for WET. I couldn't get through THE FUCKING TUTORIAL. Why? Because the "Options" Screen for controls is A FUCKING JOKE. You tell me what buttons to hit on the controller, but don't let me change anything. Seriously, how hard could it be to throw in 1 token option for the demo; you could even throw in a few extras for fun. I know that programming up to equal down isn't difficult, I could write it in half a dozen languages right now. So because you fucks are so god damn lazy and can't put one fucking option into your demos, you won't have my money. I threw down the controller in frustration after trying to play WET after all of 3 minutes, I'm not going to re-write the way I play for your shitty ass demo. So instead of getting my money, how about I shove an Xbox controller up your ass.

Signed -
- Someone who's NEVER going to be your customer.

StarCraft 2: From Day One Purchase to Piracy

nospam@example.com (Jon) — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:00:00 -0700

I think it is safe to say that Starcraft (the original) was one of my all time favorite games. It is one of those few rare games that I kept going back to playing time and time again (much like Planetside). If I didn't have it installed, inevitably it would be installed at the next LAN party. StarCraft was a mainstay of our college's video gaming experience events. We still had StarCraft tournaments, and I'm not afraid to say that we all lost to the Asian high school kids, but we had fun. Now that I think about it though, it's been a few years since I've played it. It's gotten dated, plus John and I replaced it with C&C:Generals Zero Hour, as our RTS of choice. For a LAN party, I wouldn't mind going back, if nothing else so I could set up my walls of photon cannons to piss people off with. Ahhh... good times... good times.

Then... there was StarCraft 2, and great excitement. Obviously with how much I loved StarCraft 1, StarCraft 2 was an immediate pre-order. Or... it was... until Blizzard decided to release some news about it.

Continue reading "StarCraft 2: From Day One Purchase to Piracy"