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Due partly to my Adsense account being closed for no reason, and part because I'm tired of gaming sites selling out, I've removed all ads from this blog! Enjoy!
Wednesday, March 31, 2010
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
[RageQuit] World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King (PC)
World of Warcraft (WoW for short) is one of the most popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPG's) available today. The game takes you in and beyond the story established in Blizzard's original Warcraft games - Warcraft 1, 2, and 3 (& Warcraft 3: The Frozen Throne). A lot of WoW's many, many players have all but completely devoted their lives to playing the game. After years of listening to the hype surrounding WoW, I finally broke down and decided to give it a try - hopefully to enjoy the game but not lose my life to it like everyone else I know. And, as the categorization of the review shows, I ended up ragequitting. Here are my experiences and why I ragequit.
I got the game, started it up, registered my account, and made it to the character creation screen with relatively little trouble. I have to say, WoW has one of the better character creation setups of the ones I've seen. It allows players to pick their race, class, whether they are Alliance or Horde, and some appearance settings, so you at least get to spend a little time making your character your own. As with all MMORPG's, the name creation system leaves a lot to be desired (it's essentially futile trying to get a desirable name when numbers and duplicate names are disallowed) and ended up annoying me a fair bit, but eventually I made it past character creation and started playing.
I got the game, started it up, registered my account, and made it to the character creation screen with relatively little trouble. I have to say, WoW has one of the better character creation setups of the ones I've seen. It allows players to pick their race, class, whether they are Alliance or Horde, and some appearance settings, so you at least get to spend a little time making your character your own. As with all MMORPG's, the name creation system leaves a lot to be desired (it's essentially futile trying to get a desirable name when numbers and duplicate names are disallowed) and ended up annoying me a fair bit, but eventually I made it past character creation and started playing.
After I listen to the generic story intro for my character and make it into the actual game, I notice something that hadn't occurred to me in character creation. I do realize that in this day and age, a lot of gamers (including myself) are spoiled on good graphics, and that everyone, as a general rule, pushes for top-notch textures and models in games. I am usually pretty lenient on the subject: as long as I can tell an effort was made to provide up-to-date graphics for users without messing up gameplay, I'm fine - too high-quality graphics across an MMO can cause latency issues.
But I step out into the World of Warcraft, expecting nice scenery and cool characters, and the graphics really need a lot of work. After a little bit of research, I discovered that Blizzard essentially recycled the graphics engine they used for Warcraft 3, a game much older than WoW. I don't mean to sound snobbish, but considering the billions of dollars that Blizzard continues to pull in from WoW, I really think they could put a little more effort into updating the game's graphics!
However, remembering the old adage about judging books by their covers, I pressed onward. After a few hours of gameplay, I had completed a few quests, traveled to a new town, killed a fair share of monsters, and leveled up some. Like with most games, I wanted to gain more levels so the fighting and quests would be easier, but I quickly ran into a problem: none of the monsters that I could find whose level didn't show up as "Level: ??" would give me any experience for killing them! Zero! Zip! And when I tried fighting the monsters whose level showed up as "Level: ??" almost always killed me in 2 or less hits. (And after doing some more research, I found out that "Level: ??" meant that the monsters were 6 or more levels than I. >_< ) Eventually I figured out that the only way to level up was from doing quests, but then I kept running into the problem of finding quests that were harder than I could do, and needing to do more quests to be able to do those. While there is a substantial amount of exp to be gained from quests, they take much longer than just going out and killing a few monsters for exp like in most other games.
However, remembering the old adage about judging books by their covers, I pressed onward. After a few hours of gameplay, I had completed a few quests, traveled to a new town, killed a fair share of monsters, and leveled up some. Like with most games, I wanted to gain more levels so the fighting and quests would be easier, but I quickly ran into a problem: none of the monsters that I could find whose level didn't show up as "Level: ??" would give me any experience for killing them! Zero! Zip! And when I tried fighting the monsters whose level showed up as "Level: ??" almost always killed me in 2 or less hits. (And after doing some more research, I found out that "Level: ??" meant that the monsters were 6 or more levels than I. >_< ) Eventually I figured out that the only way to level up was from doing quests, but then I kept running into the problem of finding quests that were harder than I could do, and needing to do more quests to be able to do those. While there is a substantial amount of exp to be gained from quests, they take much longer than just going out and killing a few monsters for exp like in most other games.
After a substantial amount of wandering around, I finally discovered a new city (which takes forever without a mount, by the way) and began signing on for many new quests with NPCs (Non-Player Characters). As was to be expected, these quests weren't quite as easy as the first ones I had completed, but the ramp up in difficulty seemed pretty out of whack. Almost all of the new quests I found were extremely vague and gave me no idea of where to go or what to do. After dying a few times due to aimlessly wandering around in areas filled with players and NPC's whose levels greatly outranked my own, I reached the point of RageQuit #1 (Spoiler alert: there are more than one).
While trying to find my body in unknown territory, unsuccessfully at that, I logged out and did not get back on for a long while.
RAGEQUIT #1!!!!
But I'm not quite as easily discouraged as all that. I keep trying the game again in hopes that I'll get over the small annoyances and enjoy it like everyone else (but to no luck thus far). Once I'd cooled down a bit, I tried things again.
I made a couple different characters to see what a Tauren or a Paladin looked like, and how the beginning for the Alliance and Horde differed, etc., but I mostly stuck with my main undead because I had already put a fair amount of work into it (14 hours before RageQuit #2 came along). I finally reached level 20 and purchased a mount, which made gameplay a lot easier and faster. My mount wasn't near as impressive as the others I had seen by any means, but it would certainly do. I instantly enjoyed traveling long distances more, and discovered many new towns, cities, and areas. All was going quite well as Blizzard slowly began sucking my life away, when I ran into a familiar problem from my first experiences with the game.
OMFG MOUNTAIN RANGES!!!!!!!!!
With discovering new cities and accepting bigger quests, I have to travel further into even newer territories. How does World of Warcraft ensure I enter the paths the way they want me to? Big, Annoying, Impassible, Mountain Ranges. I'm sure this could be effective for a couple cities (I wouldn't say they're a complete nuisance; I did manage to enter a couple areas surrounded by mountains successfully), but things just got ridiculous when for every new area I had to scale some huge mountain range! Not only is there practically no way of predicting which way, left or right, leads to the entrance to the area, but there are invariably several teaser paths every now and then going up the side of the mountains but don't actually cross them, even after spending forever following them to their dead ends (they were always the first things I tried, never worked, and the one time one almost did, I fell to my death >_< ).
So they let you think you can climb up and over, but then block any further travel after a couple minutes of intense climbing. And in keeping with how the game seems to hate me, I always end up picking the wrong way to travel around the mountains and land on the coast of some random endless ocean. On one occasion, being as stubborn as I am, and considering the time I'd just spent walking to that side, I continued along the tiny edge of available coast until I arrived at what appeared to be the back of the area I was trying to get to. I continued walking until I found an opening, guarded by a Level: ?? monster and a few 26's. It seemed like a not-too-difficult sneak around, so I went for it, but of course (just my luck), they started attacking me from extremely far away, and proceeded to kill me. I spawned as my spirit, tried to look for my body in more unknown territory, and found myself no closer to resurrection 30 minutes later. I called it quits for the night.
While trying to find my body in unknown territory, unsuccessfully at that, I logged out and did not get back on for a long while.
RAGEQUIT #1!!!!
But I'm not quite as easily discouraged as all that. I keep trying the game again in hopes that I'll get over the small annoyances and enjoy it like everyone else (but to no luck thus far). Once I'd cooled down a bit, I tried things again.
I made a couple different characters to see what a Tauren or a Paladin looked like, and how the beginning for the Alliance and Horde differed, etc., but I mostly stuck with my main undead because I had already put a fair amount of work into it (14 hours before RageQuit #2 came along). I finally reached level 20 and purchased a mount, which made gameplay a lot easier and faster. My mount wasn't near as impressive as the others I had seen by any means, but it would certainly do. I instantly enjoyed traveling long distances more, and discovered many new towns, cities, and areas. All was going quite well as Blizzard slowly began sucking my life away, when I ran into a familiar problem from my first experiences with the game.
OMFG MOUNTAIN RANGES!!!!!!!!!
With discovering new cities and accepting bigger quests, I have to travel further into even newer territories. How does World of Warcraft ensure I enter the paths the way they want me to? Big, Annoying, Impassible, Mountain Ranges. I'm sure this could be effective for a couple cities (I wouldn't say they're a complete nuisance; I did manage to enter a couple areas surrounded by mountains successfully), but things just got ridiculous when for every new area I had to scale some huge mountain range! Not only is there practically no way of predicting which way, left or right, leads to the entrance to the area, but there are invariably several teaser paths every now and then going up the side of the mountains but don't actually cross them, even after spending forever following them to their dead ends (they were always the first things I tried, never worked, and the one time one almost did, I fell to my death >_< ).
So they let you think you can climb up and over, but then block any further travel after a couple minutes of intense climbing. And in keeping with how the game seems to hate me, I always end up picking the wrong way to travel around the mountains and land on the coast of some random endless ocean. On one occasion, being as stubborn as I am, and considering the time I'd just spent walking to that side, I continued along the tiny edge of available coast until I arrived at what appeared to be the back of the area I was trying to get to. I continued walking until I found an opening, guarded by a Level: ?? monster and a few 26's. It seemed like a not-too-difficult sneak around, so I went for it, but of course (just my luck), they started attacking me from extremely far away, and proceeded to kill me. I spawned as my spirit, tried to look for my body in more unknown territory, and found myself no closer to resurrection 30 minutes later. I called it quits for the night.
A couple days later I got back on, buckled down to find my body, and then proceeded with a few killing and collecting quests. One directed me to go somewhere I had never heard of before, and I wasn't able to find it. I asked a friend for some help, and that's when I found out about the QuestHelper add-on for WoW.
The QuestHelper... it wasn't bad, but had one big flaw that bugged me endlessly. On the one hand it allowed me to quickly complete some easier, straightforward quests back in the second city I'd visited and some other beginner areas. But for the quests that required more travelling, things started to act up. If you didn't already know, QuestHelper's main feature is an arrow on the minimap that points in the direction needed to travel for the current quest and how many yards left until the destination is reached. The problem is that although the arrow helps give a general idea of where the destination is, it only points as the crow flies - that is to say a straight to the desired spot. It doesn't use checkpoints to account for any changes in direction you might need to make to travel around impassible obstacles. Impassibly obstacles like, oh, say, huge-ass mountain ranges. Admittedly, I may have relied a bit heavily on the system, but if I had problems with it, others are bound to do the same, and what is a 'helper' add-on supposed to do besides help?
The QuestHelper... it wasn't bad, but had one big flaw that bugged me endlessly. On the one hand it allowed me to quickly complete some easier, straightforward quests back in the second city I'd visited and some other beginner areas. But for the quests that required more travelling, things started to act up. If you didn't already know, QuestHelper's main feature is an arrow on the minimap that points in the direction needed to travel for the current quest and how many yards left until the destination is reached. The problem is that although the arrow helps give a general idea of where the destination is, it only points as the crow flies - that is to say a straight to the desired spot. It doesn't use checkpoints to account for any changes in direction you might need to make to travel around impassible obstacles. Impassibly obstacles like, oh, say, huge-ass mountain ranges. Admittedly, I may have relied a bit heavily on the system, but if I had problems with it, others are bound to do the same, and what is a 'helper' add-on supposed to do besides help?
So... yeah. My highest character thus far is level 22, I haven't even made it to the endgame stuff like PvP or Raids or heroic instances (which I'm told is pretty much the whole point of the game), and I've already ragequit twice. All of this said, though, I should add that neither of these setbacks really merited a permanent quit. As such, I'll probably keep trying WoW again at various times, so my "official" review of it is nowhere near complete, but these are my thoughts thus far.
/RageQuit
/RageQuit
I Uninstalled WoW and WarCraft III Today...
In the neverending war for hard drive real estate on my computers, World of Warcraft and Warcraft III have lost the battle and been deleted. This freed up a nice amount of gigabytes off my HDD, and I still have the installation files for both on this.
They were the best picks, anyway, seeing as I never played Warcraft III anymore, and I was fed up with WoW for the moment. Hopefully not many more games have to suffer the same, horrible fate..
They were the best picks, anyway, seeing as I never played Warcraft III anymore, and I was fed up with WoW for the moment. Hopefully not many more games have to suffer the same, horrible fate..
Saturday, March 6, 2010
[Review] Halo 3: ODST (XBOX 360)
I would like to start this review out by saying that I am a huge fan of the Halo series and of Bungie (even if they aren’t fans of me) and I’ve been with Master Chief from the start. So don’t think I’m just another Halo hater here to bash the wonderful game series. Also, this may sound like it should belong in the [RageQuit] category, but I finished the game (multiple times) and never ragequit, so while it may be a negative review of the game, it is still a full review, not just my experience ragequitting it.
I have to say, all of the previews leading up to the release of Halo 3: ODST were very promising. "New Hero. New Campaign" was one of the more popular slogans and made it onto the box art. New hero? Sounds great. New campaign? Awes- oh, it's going to be an expansion instead of a full-blown game? Alright, cool, that's just as go- wait, you all couldn't keep it in your pants enough to make it an expansion, so now you're saying it's practically a full game and it will cost $60? And you're leaving the "3" in the title, even though it apparently takes place in Halo 2's time period and really has no connection with Halo 3? And instead of keeping it mysterious with "Halo 3: Recon," you're spoiling the surprise with a title change to "Halo 3: ODST?" Oh well, let's see it!
So despite all that, it sounds like it's going to be a great game: a new, full campaign and a new multiplayer feature called "Firefight" which is just like Horde mode from Gears of War. Surely a great game that will be enjoyed for years to come, like with Halo 3, right? Well, no, not really. The most enjoyment I got out of it was using the Halo 3: Mythic multiplayer disc that came with the rest of the Halo 3 maps on it, and not the game itself. Let's take a look.
Excited for the release, I go to my local GameStop, preorder my copy of Halo 3: ODST (I end up ordering the Limited Edition version because I needed a fourth controller), and then wait for a very long time. September 22nd finally rolls around, after my losing my first XBOX to a flood, and I pick up my game late that night after school, and pop it in to test it out. Nice controller, nice dramatic intro and title screens, and cool intro to the game, but two things immediately get on my nerves.
I have to say, all of the previews leading up to the release of Halo 3: ODST were very promising. "New Hero. New Campaign" was one of the more popular slogans and made it onto the box art. New hero? Sounds great. New campaign? Awes- oh, it's going to be an expansion instead of a full-blown game? Alright, cool, that's just as go- wait, you all couldn't keep it in your pants enough to make it an expansion, so now you're saying it's practically a full game and it will cost $60? And you're leaving the "3" in the title, even though it apparently takes place in Halo 2's time period and really has no connection with Halo 3? And instead of keeping it mysterious with "Halo 3: Recon," you're spoiling the surprise with a title change to "Halo 3: ODST?" Oh well, let's see it!
Excited for the release, I go to my local GameStop, preorder my copy of Halo 3: ODST (I end up ordering the Limited Edition version because I needed a fourth controller), and then wait for a very long time. September 22nd finally rolls around, after my losing my first XBOX to a flood, and I pick up my game late that night after school, and pop it in to test it out. Nice controller, nice dramatic intro and title screens, and cool intro to the game, but two things immediately get on my nerves.
I'm sitting in my chair, tired from school, watching the intro video when I hear a recognizable voice: Nathan Fillion from Castle and Firefly! Awesome! At least, until I see the faces. I'm not sure what happened to the graphics department for this game (and there really are many overall improvements to the graphics engine from Halo 3), but all of the faces honestly look like crap. They have hardly any texture or detail, and while it still looks like Nathan Fillion in an ODST suit, it looks like someone drew it in Microsoft Paint. And, yet again, the main character of the Halo game refuses to take off his helmet. Why does Bungie continue to insist on hiding their (already-dehumanized) main characters?
When I actually start playing, I check out the cool SMG, and am impressed with the return of the Pistol from Halo: CE. But when I keep hitting the Y button... Where the hell is my Battle Rifle?? After asking around the internet the next day, I find out the ODST head guy doesn't like BRs (or something to that effect). To this day I don't get that. In Halo 2 and 3 the ODSTs make almost exclusive use of BRs, but now when *we* play as them they just can't? How do I kill the Covenant then? Oh, that's right, a silenced pistol that doesn't even have a silencer on it.
Another weapon complaint: Ooh, that Brute dropped a Spiker! *Walks over and holds B to swap weapons.* Oh, look, another! *Holds A to dual wield.* Wait... Where's my second Spiker? Apparently not only do the ODSTs not like BRs, but they can't dual wield, either.
I do realize that these are relatively small game technicalities, but hey, it's the small things that make or break a game! Once I finally get the chance to carry a chaingun turrent (though I honestly was not expecting to be able to after everything else), all of a sudden I get a speed boost! Not only am I moving faster than Master Chief, a 7' tall, super soldier, but I'm actually moving faster than I did before I grabbed the turret! Is that even physically possible? (The answer is no.)
Moving on to the bigger picture, length is a big issue. We are at a point in FPS (First Person Shooter) gaming where the average FPS campaign for PC or Console almost never goes longer than 8 hours, and most last closer to 6. But on Normal difficulty, Halo 3: ODST's campaign only provides the player with 4 hours of campaign gameplay! Even if you were to up the difficulty to Legendary and explore more in the sandbox-type areas, the campaign still wouldn't make it to 5 hours. What happened to the "full game" this expansion had allegedly turned in to? Why did I have to pay a ridiculous $60 (plus $40 for controller) for this tiny game, when longer ones release at $50? Having been told that Bungie went above and beyond the original expansion expectations for Halo 3: ODST and made a full-blown game, I was expecting a campaign that was at least as long as Halo 3's, and for all the questions from Halo 3 and the hype for ODST to be answered. Instead, I got a short campaign and more questions raised than answered.
Moving on to the bigger picture, length is a big issue. We are at a point in FPS (First Person Shooter) gaming where the average FPS campaign for PC or Console almost never goes longer than 8 hours, and most last closer to 6. But on Normal difficulty, Halo 3: ODST's campaign only provides the player with 4 hours of campaign gameplay! Even if you were to up the difficulty to Legendary and explore more in the sandbox-type areas, the campaign still wouldn't make it to 5 hours. What happened to the "full game" this expansion had allegedly turned in to? Why did I have to pay a ridiculous $60 (plus $40 for controller) for this tiny game, when longer ones release at $50? Having been told that Bungie went above and beyond the original expansion expectations for Halo 3: ODST and made a full-blown game, I was expecting a campaign that was at least as long as Halo 3's, and for all the questions from Halo 3 and the hype for ODST to be answered. Instead, I got a short campaign and more questions raised than answered.
Overall, I was quite let down with Halo 3: ODST, and I think it could have been much better. I did not feel that FireFight was worth reviewing, but the rest of it I gave my harsh opinion on. For all the hype, the release had far too many gameplay issues, far too little playtime, and left far too many questions unanswered. If you're a die-hard Halo fan like me, I wouldn't tell you not to get the game, but don't pay full price for it, as it will soon just be gathering dust in your collection. For the rest of you, though, I'd honestly recommend that you just buy the rest of the Mythic Maps for Halo 3 and save your money for another game.
Bungie, I am disappoint. I am very disappoint. Let's hope reach won't "fall" this hard..
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