Pokémon GO

After getting a new HP last week, I’m finally joining the monster mobile named Pokémon Go. After playing it for a few days, I will say this of the game. It’s fun, it’s addictive, but I doubt it’s going to have a long shelf life.

Using a player’s smartphone camera and GPS signal, the game put players in the shoes of Pokémon trainers. Going around the real world, players now can enjoy their childhood dreams of being Pokémon trainer and to become the next Pokémon Champion.

In many ways, Pokémon Go is great. I know many people worry about going to places to catch the Pokémon but I don’t see as a problem here in Singapore. Everyone know where to go and at certain places, there’s no shortage of the little monsters. I started the game at Vivocity, walked to Sentosa, took the tram to Siloso Beach, walked to Fort Silso, U-turn back, and took the tram back to Vivo. By then I was level 8 and my bags was full.

It took me about 2 and a half hours but it’s not that difficult. It’s just a walk. The walking aspect is really the highlight of the game. The world aspect of the game is superb. On Sentosa, I was walking to the tram when I saw 2 girls running across me with HPs in hand. I then checked and noticed a Lapras in the area. I followed the girls to the waterfront and 8-10 Pokéballs later, I got my Lapras. Without those girls, I would probably still be missing the Pokémon.

In many ways, Pokémon Go is the first true mobile MMO where many players play together. No one playing alone in your room. This is a true MMO where you will see players of all ages playing. However after a few days of the game, I could see some problems with the game.

Simply put; there’s not much to do. Take away the walking and catching, there’s really nothing more to the game. The Gym battles is simple and, if you are the attacker, easy. The catching of the Pokémons isn’t that difficult, and well, that’s all there is to the game.

Even for a mobile game, the gameplay is really very sparse. I think the game need a lot more to hold on to the players it currently has. If the game can do that, then the future looks bright. If not, then it will get into problems very quickly. In all, what Pokemon Go lacks in polish and depth, it makes up for with a fascinating social experience. It’s a fun game. Let’s all of us see if it has legs. 

Overwatch

I generally do not play shooters. Yes, I had played some of them before. I have the first 2 Borderlands; I have Spec Ops: The Line; I had played some Counter-Strike, but that’s about it. I’m generally a RPG gamer.

However Overwatch isn’t so much a game but an event. Blizzard had delivered the PR campaign of the year to hype up the game and yes, I had been sucked into it. I don’t mind. I don’t mind at all. I don’t mind because Overwatch is a great game. Not just a great first-person shooter, but a great game period!

On the surface, Overwatch seems pretty much like any other shooter out there. It has a simple formula of two teams of six each trying to win a match. Victory conditions change according to the map; escort missions, control of objective points, or capture of positions. However what make Overwatch different are the heroes.

Overwatch has 21 characters called heroes and they are the heart and soul of the game. They are very different from each other. There is the giant gorilla Winston who has high hit points and can put up a circular shield to defend an area. There’s the dwarf engineer Torbjörn who can build an upgradeable defensive turret that shoot any enemy that comes into range. There's Hanzo who is a sniper and has an ultimate basically kill everyone in its path. There's Tracer who can blink from place to place and even reverse her actions to correct mistakes she made seconds earlier.

Now all the 21 heroes are categorized into 4 different areas; attack, defense, tank and support, the trick Blizzard pulls is this; several of the heroes overlap into different areas. Mercy is a strict support character, a healer who can resurrect fallen allies. Zenyatta is also a support character. He can heal but his main ability is actually a debuff that lowers the defense of enemies. He also has long range attacks to take advantage of the debuffs he put on enemies. So you have 2 supports with 2 very different play-styles. Now times that by 21 and you can imagine the sheer number of combinations this game supports.

Not only that, the game is also very charming. The world Overwatch is set in is filled with load of background info and trying to find these Easter Eggs is part of the fun for a lot of fans. The game's highly detailed character design is nothing short of superb. No two characters look alike and many times you can see the intended role of the character just by looking at it.

The gameplay of Overwatch is a hydra that is very impressive. In fact calling it “very impressive” is an understatement as the way the characters, maps and gameplay interact with each other is a lot more than that. No two matches of Overwatch are the same as players can switch characters mid-match according to the ebb and flow of the match. In fact, switching characters is almost necessary, especially in Competitive Mode, to be successful. This actually helps keep the game fresh as players faced situations that can change in a hurry. Simply put; there’s no one single way to play Overwatch. There are many ways to play the game, sometimes even in a single match.

Overwatch is also a very fast-paced game. When I first saw the demo, I was surprised by just how fast it is. I was a little worried at the pace at first but after playing awhile I think the pace might be a good thing for the game. Matches can be quite fast and it is a game I can see players logging in for 30 minutes of fun before logging out. Also Overwatch has been such a phenomenon there will be no shortage of players in the foreseeable future so no problems on that front.

Of course, there are some problems with Overwatch. For the life of me, I can’t understand why there’s no story mode. I can understand no one play a shooter for the story (look at the lack of success of Spec Ops: The Line if you disagree), but the characters and world are just begging for a story mode. The game is literally filled with them, and Blizzard clearly put a lot of effort in the lore of the world, so why not a story mode? That makes no sense to me.

Also, how much you enjoy the game will depend a lot on the players that are on your team. I lost count of the number of matches I lost because certain players on my team went chasing after the enemy for a kill instead of playing the objective. Defending a control point is especially bad when you have such players on your team. They will chase the enemy outnumbered 2vs6, get killed, and then the enemy will roll over the rest of the team 6 on 4. It just pissed me off sometimes.

On the whole however, this is one game I have to recommend. I mean I’m not a shooter guy and I can get into the game so you can just imagine how fun it is. Buy Overwatch; you own it to yourself to play this game! 

Valkyria Chronicles

First developed and published by Sega for the PlayStation 3 in 2008, Valkyria Chronicles made the jump to the PC last year (Nov 2014 to be exact) and after playing it, I have to say it is every bit as good as critics says. Valkyria Chronicles is a turn-based strategy game that’s set in an alternate-reality World War II. However calling it just a turn-based strategy game is to do it a disservice. Valkyria Chronicles also incorporate JRPG and third-person real-time shooter in it.

The campaign is presented in a book format with each new chapter showing a significant moment of the war, and each chapter (bar one) has at least one battle you need to fight through. At the start of the battle, you see a top-down map and you need to deploy your forces. After the deployment phase, the game starts and you are given a fixed number of command points per turn from the perspective of the map. You use a command point to select a unit, and the camera will zoom you in over the shoulder of the unit you selected. You move the unit and there’s a bar at the bottom of the scene showing your movement points. You can’t move once the bar reached zero and enemies will also shoot at you if you get too close. When you aim, enemies stop attacking and you are shown a circle cross-hair to line up. Once the shot is done, you can move if the unit still has some movement points left. Then you use another command point to select another unit. Once out of command points the enemy takes their turn.

If this sounds a little confusing, that’s because it is. It took me awhile to get used to it but once I did, I found the gameplay to have a lot of depth. The unique combat system forces me to learn strategies on a few different levels. The map view makes me a commander, having to constantly think of the movement and positioning of my units. Zooming into a soldier offered a different perspective, a more personal one that shows the danger the unit is it.

The gameplay does not only involve the battles. Outside the battles, you can train and equip your squad members at your Headquarters. You will also need to select the members of your squad. There are about 50 to choose from and each member has his/her personality, including which characters they prefer to work along. Each of them also has a full page of back story that is only revealed as they fight.

However what made the squad system works is the threat of permadeath. If a downed character can’t be evacuated in three turns, they are gone for good. So as the battles piled up, the thoughts of keeping the members of your squad alive becomes paramount. You become attached to them. The developers obviously know this because one of the achievements available is for the permadeath of one of your experienced squad member. Those bastards!

The game is also pretty long (coming in at around 40 hours) and difficult. More than a few of the battles require smart deployment of your squad and smooth movement of them. It is challenging and very satisfying when you beat it.

The story is also very good. The entire game is contained within a fictitious book entitled "On the Gallian Front" by Irene Koller and revolves around Welkin Gunther, son of a war hero. Upon returning to his home town of Bruhl, Welkin's life was soon swept away by the invasion of Gallia from its’ eastern neighbor. Gallia has a policy of Universal Conscription and partly due to his father’s past war heroics, Welkin was drafted and given command of Squad 7 of the Gallian Militia. Serving as a tank commander, Welkin and Squad 7 began their campaign to fight the Imperial advance into Gallia.

It’s a story of war and all the heroics and ugliness that comes with it. You see story characters die in the midst of war, fighting the good fight. Characters who comprised their principals in the name of the greater good. Characters who managed to find love and become better people in the ugliness that surrounds them. I will admit the story is melodramatic and heavy-handed at times, but it does works.

Of course no game is perfect but I can only think of one for Valkyria Chronicles. The control for tanks can be a little twitchy at times.  Moving the camera around sometimes means the tank would turn as well and I could never understand why. However outside that, I can’t really think of anything to complain about.

So don’t wait and get this game. With its’ unique gameplay, strong story and good art, Valkyria Chronicles is a game you need to try. Who knows? If sales are good, then maybe Sega will port Valkyria Chronicles II & III to the PC as well. Buy it! 

Tomb Raider

I’m not a fan of Tomb Raider. In the long history of Lara Croft and Tomb Raider, I think I had played only 1 of the games (forgotten which one) and seen 1 of the movies (mainly due to the then young and still hot Angelina Jolie). So it’s fair to say I’m not a fan.

This game changed that.  

Tomb Raider is a 2013 reboot of the Tomb Raider franchise showing a young, green and inexperienced Lara Croft in her first adventure. For that reason, it has been dubbed Tomb Raider: Year 1 by many fans. In many ways, Tomb Raider: Year 1 is correct.

The game begins with Lara setting out on her first expedition aboard the ship Endurance, with the intention of finding the lost kingdom of Yamatai. Against the advice of others, she ordered the expedition to venture into the Dragon's Triangle, an area east of Japan known for its violent storms. The ship was struck by a violent storm and shipwrecked, leaving the survivors stranded on an isolated island.

Lara was one of the survivors and as she tried to locate the other survivors of her ship, she found evidence that the island was inhabited. Strange carvings, dead bodies, animal sacrifices, cultists all proved to her that the island had been inhabited for a long time and that the island she washed up on was the legendary island of Yamatai. Not only that, she became convinced that there was something mystical about the island.

However the story of Tomb Raider takes a backseat to the gameplay and the characterization of Lara. The game emphasized the origins of Lara, showing her development to become the character everyone knows and love. Many people say this was the highlight of the game and I fully agree on that. After playing the game, I finally get it. I finally understand why so many people love Lara Croft so much. Like I said earlier, this game made me a fan.

I especially liked the fact that this Lara Croft was one who bleeds and gets dirty. Good use of cut-scenes shows Lara hurt, injured and desperate. Even when you were in-game playing Lara, you could see the dirt on her and that by itself makes this game better than previous Tomb Raider games.  The game also made sure to show that Lara is no saint. She makes mistakes and has a tendency to believe she knows better than everyone, even when she acknowledges that others were more experience than she was.

Not only that, the gameplay was excellent. The visual of Yamatai was great and the game itself was exciting. Many times during combat, I found myself holding my breath. Some of the puzzles and hidden tomb locations were also very well done.

Of course the game was not perfect. The multiplayer was non-existent because…well, no one’s there. A lot of the achievements in the game are in the multiplayer so if you are one of those who aims for 100% completion; sorry but you’re out of luck.

Also, Lara Croft was emphasized so much in the game the rest of the cast became pretty forgettable. Most of them could be easily be put into generic tropes like dead mentor, insane bad-guy, lovelorn potential boyfriend etc. Tomb Raider was about Lara Croft, Lara is the Tomb Raider. Everyone else was a secondary character that weren't worth remembering.

Overall, Tomb Raider is a game I would highly recommend. It’s an exciting action-adventure game that would not only please old fans of Lara Croft but also bring new fans to the franchise. Bring forth the sequel; Rise of the Tomb Raider!

Dragon Age: Inquisition

Bioware had a lot riding on Dragon Age: Inquisition. The third installment of the Dragon Age series, Inquisition had to make up the lost sales of Dragon Age 2 and get the franchise back on track. It mostly succeeded.

Personally, I never had been a great fan of the series. I thought Dragon Age: Origins was a good game but was overrated. It wasn’t anywhere near as great as many would have you believe. Dragon Age 2 had a great story, but the gameplay wasn’t as good and it didn’t allow you to have as many choices as Origins. Bioware obviously took into account fans’ complaints during the production of Inquisition and the result was a game that’s the sum of its predecessors. 

The story takes place after the events of Dragon Age 2 with the Mages and Templers in all-out war. The Chantry is trying to de-escalate the situation and holds a peace summit. You took part in the summit when things go badly wrong.

Once you recovered, you discovered that a big blast killed everyone at the summit except you. Not only that, there’s now a big hole in the sky and demons from the Fade are using it to enter your world. Your job is to stop the demons, closed the hole in the sky, and find out who targeted the summit.

At its heart, Dragon Age: Inquisition is an action role-playing game and in many ways it is superior to its predecessors. The behind-the-back combat view took a little time for me to get use to but once I did, the action flows. I also like the fact that the Qunari race is playable for the first time, and considering the number of Youtube videos out there showing Qunaris in-game, I’m not the only one.

The idea that you’re not just the leader of a bunch of adventurers, but the leader of a movement that aims to reform the world and bring order to it was very well executed. Your inquisition will sent followers to scout regions, undertake missions, require power, play politics, do investigations; and all these actions are tied, some loosely I admit, to the story. This allows you to have a sense of epicness; that you are truly playing for the world.

However in many ways, it is the little things that Dragon Age: Inquisition really shines. The small pieces of lore scattered all over the place, the small details in the elf temple, the decisions you make in the throne room; these are what ultimately set this game apart from the first two.

Of course the game is not perfect. I found the tactical view to be terrible. It is almost useless especially when you encounter multiple enemies standing close to each other. Some of the specialization classes are also overpowered, some even say the Knight-Enchanter class is unkillable. It’s an exaggeration, but only just.  

I also find the Dragon Age Keep to be a stupid. In theory, Dragon Age Keep allows players to have an ability to import their save files from the first two games into Dragon Age: Inquisition. If players of the previous games do not have access to their save files, they can go to a website, Dragon Age Keep, in which they can detail the major plots of the previous two Dragon Age games. In theory, this allows players to customize their games without having to replay of the initial games.

In practice however, Dragon Age Keep can mess up because it does not save the files onto the game. Everytime you enter Inquistion, the game will go to Dragon Age Keep to get the files. I actually went and change the info on my Dragon Age Keep because I wanted to start a second game. Once I done that however, the info on my first game got change so I got a game whose world history was changed halfway into the game. Talk about breaking world immersion

On the whole however, Dragon Age: Inquisition is a good game. An epic story (that admitting loses steam halfway), detailed environments, excellent combat, good voice acting, makes Dragon Age: Inquisition the best game of the Dragon Age series. 

Dishonored: Game of the Year

“Dishonored: Game of the Year” is the GOTY edition of the stealth action-adventure video game first released in 2012. Developed by Arkane Studios, the studio that made Bioshock 2, I found Dishonored to be a game that doesn’t change the stealth playing field but it does do a lot of things very well.

Set in the Victorian, steam-punk city of Dunwall, you play as Corvo Attano, bodyguard to the Empress of the Isles. Quickly, you are framed for her murder and the kidnapping of the young princess, Emily. After escaping from prison with the help of the Loyalists, a resistance group fighting to reclaim Dunwall, you seek vengeance on those who framed you and also come into contact with the Outsider, a powerful magical being who (for some reason) imbues you with magical abilities.

Played from a first-person perspective, the game will remind players a lot of games like Thief but with more combat. Don’t get me wrong, Dishonored is primarily a stealth game but the game does allow you to undertake the missions in a variety of ways. For example, you can carry out your assassination missions by killing no one but the target; or you can murder everyone in your path when getting to the target.

The game does allow you to complete all missions in a non-lethal manner or vice-verse, and the story will accordingly to your decisions. The variety of choice is one of the game’s main selling points and I liked it. I can complete my mission through stealth, combat, or (usually) a combination of both and the many ways for accomplishing mission goals is something I enjoy.

I also liked the very well thought-out lore. I’m not really a fan of steam-punk (never understood the fascination) but the setting of Dunwall is very good. The idea that the main energy source is whale oil is wonderful and makes a lot of sense in the context of the game. Also the idea of the Outsider is great. The world of Dishonored is basically one well into the early industrial age, so much so that most magic in the world had been forgotten and considered dangerous and “evil”.

The city of Dunwall is also one that is very well thought-out. A city ravaged by plague, Arkane Studios captured the atmosphere of the game very well. The city is stunning but it clearly had seen better days and the bright but grim city captures everything. Even the rich/poor divide of the city was well-captured.

However, I do find some problems with the game. I thought the story has some plot-holes in it. The game never told us why the Outsider chose to give magical powers to Corvo, and if you go the non-lethal, why all the Loyalists killed themselves at the end. I mean if you hadn’t killed anyone thus far, why do they think I will start now? I thought the story in the DLCs, The Knife of Dunwall and The Brigmore Witches, to be much better. The story of the assassin, Daud, actually makes more sense than Corvo’s and when the story of the DLC beat the main game; that’s a problem.

Still, I think “Dishonored: Game of the Year” is a good game to get. The freedom of gameplay is great and the levels are generally very clever. The game has a lot of replay value and outside the story, there’s nothing wrong with it. It’s not great but it’s fun and ultimately, that’s the most important thing for a video game.  

Mark of the Ninja

As stealth games goes, Mark of the Ninja is a revelation. Although not a huge fan of the genre, I have played my fair share of stealth games but I have never played one quite like Mark of the Ninja.

A 2D side-scroll game, Mark of the Ninja requires the character to sneak through a series of levels while staying away from traps and out of sight of guards. The player is visible to enemies in areas of light and hidden in darkness; however that’s not all. Enemies also react to sounds and actions like running may also give away the player character's location and are represented visually by an expanding circle.

If the player do manage to silently approached an enemy, the player will be able to perform a one-hit kill. The silent assassination is performed by the player moving the mouse in the direction showed on screen. This may sound easy but in the heat of the moment with the fear of being discovered always hanging above you, it is not as easy as it sounds. You can also move your enemies around by making sounds so that they would come to investigate, and when they do…

Being able to perform silent kills is not just fun, it is also very important because in the game, open combat is not to your advantage. Mark of the Ninja takes place in a modern world where your enemies are armed with guns and body armor; you are a nameless ninja armed with ancient ninja weapons. If you are detected by an enemy, chances are you will lose the fight. If it’s two on one, then you can practically forget about it. You lose.

This trade-off is one of the things I love about this game. Mark of the Ninja mercilessly forces you to go on the stealth route, but the ability to make your enemies move into position and silenced them makes you predator, not prey. This allows the players to feel like a badass while at the same time making the penalty of being exposed by enemies very high. Klei Entertainment knows what game they were making; you are not Corvo, Agent 47 or Sam Fisher; there’s no fighting your way out of a jam.

In fact, not fighting is the way to go in the game. Mark of the Ninja is an assassination game, not a fighting one. The game touted that you can complete the game without killing anyone. Completing the game, I have to say that it is possible but would be very hard. The same can be said about killing every enemy on a level. It’s possible, but only just. However having such options in-game shows the versatility of the game which is always a good thing.

The story of the game was also surprisingly good. Told via a series of cutscenes, the story is basically about the conflict between ancient ninja traditions and the modern world. What seems like a straight forward story of betrayal got turned on its head in the final act when you discover that the protagonist (the player) might be psychotic.

The only real complain I would have is some of the level design. Shadow plays a huge part of the game and sometimes I have an issue with it. Which wall I can climb on and which wall I can’t; which staircase I can drop from, which I can’t. In the shadowy 2D world of Mark of the Ninja, this is not always clear.

However this is just a minor complain when you compare it to the unique game it is. It is a fun, challenging game with good sound, art and story. It is also a brand new fresh take on the stealth genre. So play it, Mark of the Ninja is an excellent game. 

Recettear: An Item Shop Tale

In any role-playing game, as the main character, you are bound to get a load of items. Some items you keep as they are useful, but the vast majority of the items are useless crap which you sell to any shop around you. In Recettear: An Item Shop Tale, you are the shop owner!

In this twist of a game, you are Recette. An optimistic, slightly clueless girl (yeah, this game is from Japan), Recette woke up one day to find a fairy, Tear, in her house. Tear then proceed to tell Recette that her missing adventurer father took a massive loan payments from a bank and Tear is there to repossess the house. However there is still some time before the payment is due so Tear recommend that Recette's house be turned in an item shop as a way for her to raises the necessary funds to repay the loan.

Now I love games that twist convention like this, but a friend thought the game sounded dull. I mean don't most shop owners just sit and wait for customers to come in? Not so in Recettear.

In Recettear, each day is broken up into four periods, and you need to decide how best to spend each period of time. Opening the shop brings in customers, exiting the shop opens up access to other shops in town that'll sell weapons, armor, and upgrades that can potentially help you turn a profit. However each action takes up one period of the day.

You will also meet up with various adventurers and become friends with them, though these meetings also mostly takes up one period of the day. Meeting them is important as you need them to go on dungeon crawls. As Recette and Tear can't directly attack, adventurers you meet throughout the game will clear the dungeon and Recette and Tear can pick up the treasure that enemies drop . The problem is that each dungeon crawl takes up two period of the day so you need to balance the time need for the dungeon crawl with the needs of keeping your shop open for business.

In short, Recettear: An Item Shop Tale isn't just a game about buying low and selling high; it is also a time management game with combat thrown in for good measure. And it is anything but easy.

Outside all the things you need to learn (news bulletins, trendy items, merchant bonus, levels of Recette and her adventurers friends, special orders, haggling with customers), there's also a high degree of difficulty in repaying the weekly loan. Initially it's a small sum, but by the later weeks of the month, you need to cough out 200,000 and 500,000! Should you fail, the game will restart at the first week, though with your characters keeping their levels. How anyone can beat the game in the first play-through is beyond me! I know; I tried.  

The game may be hard but it also deceptively simple. I think this is mainly due to the cutesy anime look and the great sense of humor of the game. Recette is the likeable dolt kept in line by the responsible Tear and the interaction between this odd couple is funny as hell. The story may be pretty simple but the conversations between the duo and the supporting cast are top notch.

Also once you complete the game, Recettear: An Item Shop Tale unlock many game modes like a survival mode, and an endless mode where you can continue on selling and adventuring without the debt repayment structure.

Of course the game is not perfect. Although there's a good variety of adventurers for you to choose from, it's hard to choose anyone but Louie the Swordsman. The first adventurer  you get, he's really the only one you really need. Although the rest of the adventurers has some good abilities, when you first get them their levels would be way below Louie, so there's no incentive to use them.

Also the dungeons and the combat can become repetitive in the later stages and many times I would rushed through them just to get to the boss. I mean there's only so many times you can kill a bouncing jelly before you get tired of it. A greater variety of monsters would have served the game better.

However all the things you can do in the game makes Recettear a game with great value of money. The gameplay is incredibly addictive and honestly if there's a sequel, I'll probably get it. Recettear: An Item Shop Tale is that good.

Hearthstone: Heroes of WarCraft

Computer collectible card game is a bit of an oxymoron. Collectible card game (CCG) means you collect cards and then play the game based on the said cards. On the computer, you don’t have cards; you only have a program that pretends to be cards. If you can get pass that oxymoron, then the game for you is “Hearthstone: Heroes of WarCraft”.

Hearthstone is a free-to-play card game created by Blizzard Entertainment that’s very similar to Magic: The Gathering, but with some subtle differences that only becomes more and more apparent as you play along. The hidden depth of the game makes it a different beast and after a few sessions, you wouldn't even think of Magic as you play.  

First off, you need to pick a hero. There are nine in total, each in a different class; Mage, Shaman, Warlock, Druid, Priest, Paladin, Warrior, Rogue and Hunter. Each hero/class has unique class-specific cards, which you use along with general cards usable by all classes to form a deck of 30.

At the start, you only have a simple set of cards, but as you play along you will unlock more and more cards. You can get the cards either by buying card packs or just by leveling up your heroes. This means you can play and enjoy the game without having pay a single cent. For cheapskates like myself, this is great news!

There is also the Arena mode. The Arena costs gold to enter, and is basically the seal-decked format for Hearthstone. Players choose one of three randomly drawn heroes, then build a deck by choosing one card out of three random cards every time till their deck is full. Once you lose three games, the Arena is over and you will be award prizes based on how many games you won.

If you worry about the gold needed to enter the Arena; don't. The best part of the game is the fact that the game dish out gold very often. Once a day, the game will give you a quest (win 3 games; deal 100 damage to opponents, cast 40 spells etc) and once you complete it, you will be awarded gold. Gold you can use to buy card packs or play the Arena. I usually load up my quests to 3, which is the max, and then play the game to finish the quests for the gold. Not only that, I can level up my heroes that way; which get me more cards! 

Of course the game is not perfect. Each hero comes with a unique hero power. The various hero powers range from offensive to defensive and can be used once each turn. They are also range from the useful to the almost useless. Although Blizzard regularly makes adjustments to the cards, I think they need to look into the hero powers. Some of them are in need of some serious revision.

I would also like to have more heroes to choose from. Right now if I want to play a Mage, I need to choose Jania from the Alliance. Why can't I be a Mage from the Horde? The crafting system also need some work. It took me a long time to figure it out, and when I did I wasn't impress. It just wasn't worth the work, much easier to just play the game and get gold to buy the packs.

However the first thing in need of work has to be the ranking system.

Hearthstone has a very workable system of matching you with an opponent of the same rank, but that ranking is based on your overall performance in the game. So when I play my lower level heroes, and promptly lose, it lowered my ranking. However when I play my higher level heroes, it's almost unfair because the game matches me against other players of the same overall rank but they do not have a hero that matches my high level hero. I think it's better for the game to match players based on the heroes' level rather than the overall rank of the players.

All these knocks however will not affect your enjoyment of the game. I have been playing Hearthstone for over a month and found that it is a game that’s fun, engrossing, accessible, and yet hard to be good at. Basically, it’s one of those games that’s easy to pick up yet hard to master; and those games are always the most fun.

The Walking Dead: Season 1

The Walking Dead: Season 1 is a graphic adventure based on Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead comic book series. Developed by Telltale Games, the game was originally released online part by part (known as episodes) in 2012, but I got the full game released as The Walking Dead: Season 1.

A graphic adventure game, The Walking Dead: Season 1 is the story of Lee Everett, a convicted murderer who was on his way to prison when the zombie apocalypse hits the world. The game takes places around the time as the comic and you do come across certain characters from the comic.

However it is wrong to even think of it as a rip-off of the comic. The Walking Dead: Season 1 has its own story and it is a very well-written one. This is arguably the best written game I had ever played and if you play finish the game and don’t feel anything for characters like Clementine (a young girl in the game), then I dare say there’s something seriously wrong with you.

Unlike many graphic adventure games, The Walking Dead: Season 1 put the emphasis on story and character development instead of puzzle solving and the end result is amazing. I was especially impressed with the way the story interwove with the gameplay. As Lee, you get to decide what to do and how to interact with your follow survivors. This might sound like standard stuff, but it is the integration of story and gameplay that make this game stands out. The story is affected both by the dialogue choices and the actions you choose. During some quick time events for example, certain characters will be killed by your actions and you need to choose who to save. Non-actions will result in an even worse fate for the characters. (What can I say, I was curious)  

Something I also like was the way Telltale track the choices made by the player. At the end of each episode, the game will show you the choices you made in the episode and the percentage of players worldwide who did the same thing you did. It doesn’t affect the game at all but it was fun knowledge.

Of course the game wasn’t perfect. The game has some small shooting and fighting sections in it, and I found these to be less than engrossing. Also the story might not be for everyone. The story is good but it is also a tragedy (this is The Walking Dead after all), and that might not be for everyone.

However these are but minor points for me. The Walking Dead: Season 1 has been critically acclaimed, winning gaming awards left, right and center. After playing the game, I have to agree with them. It might be the best game ever made, but it could have the best story ever written for a game. For that, The Walking Dead: Season 1 is certainly worth a play. 

Guild Wars 2

Guild Wars 2 is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by ArenaNet and published by NCsoft. Set in the fantasy world of Tyria, the game is the sequel to Guild Wars, though set 250 years after the first game.

Much like Guild Wars, Guild Wars 2 features a lack of subscription fees. A purchase of the game is required to install the game but after that, players can play the game for free. There is a cash-shop in the game but that is entirely optional and despite playing the game for around 2 months, I personally never went into it and can’t tell the difference.

ArenaNet has said publicly that they wanted Guild Wars 2 to be different from your standard, average MMO game. On this, I have to agree that they had largely succeeded. From the beginning, Guild Wars 2 asked you to select your character’s background. The choices you picked would customize your own personal story, and that personal story varies very different depending on your choices. The variety of choices at the start of the game was great.

I loved the way ArenaNet almost forced players to help each other in the game. In Guild Wars 2, quests are public and even the group quests (called events) are so. Many times, I was wandering around when the game informed me there is an event on. I could just go to the location where the event was and joined in, even if it had already started. Everyone who joined get experience and rewards depending on how long and how much you did in the event. There’s no need to join a group or get an invitation, you just go to the locations of the event and pitch in. The ease of this system made it advisable and easy for players to help other players and is something other MMORPGs should look into.

Also I have to give credit to ArenaNet on the design of the games. The various zones and cities were very well done. Each of the five starting cities (one for each race) has a distinct look and feel to them. The human’s city of Divinity’s Reach has a medieval fantasy feel to it while the Asura’s Rata Sum is based almost totally around technology. Each city has a style of its own and they were fun to explore.

The game also had beautiful visuals. I’m no graphics snob but I have to say Guild Wars 2 is a beautiful game. I’m especially impressed with the underwater combat and scenes. Water is one of the hardest things to get right in a game and ArenaNet kill it there.

Of course, not everything was golden.

Like most MMORPGs, the story of the game was disappointing. Although I enjoyed the starting story of the character, I was disappointed also because the game mostly ignored your character’s background once you finish with the initial storyline. Around level 30 onwards, once you join one of Tyria’s major Orders, it’s as if the choices you picked at the start did not matter. I thought this was disappointing as I thought ArenaNet was on to something there at the start.

Also, the game doesn’t do a job explaining the various concepts of the game. I exactly thought there was no PVP in this game at first till I notice that I had a PVP world icon at the top of the screen. Also, the game never explained the salvage and item collection system. I mean the system is great but for a long time, I didn’t how to use it and it was only through trial, error and Youtube did I finally figure it out. ArenaNet really need to better explain such matters to players.

Lastly, Guild Wars 2 suffers from a problem most MMORPGs suffer from; class imbalance. I always tried out all the classes and races on offer before deciding on which combination of class and race to continue on. I have to say some of the classes are far and away more powerful than others. It’s still a relatively new game so there’s plenty of time for ArenaNet to get things right but I think this is something they need to take a careful look into.

Guild Wars 2 has been on many gamers’ radar for quite a while, and has been touted (fairly or not) as yet another Wow-killer. After playing the game for about 2 months, I can say that World of Warcraft players can relax. This game is not going to kill off WoW. However, Guild Wars 2 is a very good game. It is a highly enjoyable game that tried successfully to change a few things for the MMORPG genre. Take a look at it and enjoy the ride.

Dragon Age 2

Dragon Age 2 is the sequel to the epic 2009 game, Dragon Age.: Origins. Made by Bioware, Dragon Age: Origins was a critically acclaimed game that was well-loved by gamers.

I’m not one of them.

I thought Dragon Age: Origins was good but I didn’t find it to be “that good” and maybe that’s why I took my time before getting Dragon Age 2. Not helping was the fact that Dragon Age 2 is considered one of the more controversial role-playing games of recent time. People complaining of the game’s narrative, story structure and gameplay had been vocal.

Dragon Age 2 has you in the character of Hawke, a refugee from Lothering. If you recall, Lothering was a town that was destroyed early in the original Dragon Age game and as you escaped the destruction of your home with your family, you will land in Kirkwall. In a fight for survival in a chaotic world, you must gather allies, fame and fortune to eventually be a Champion of Kirkwall.

I might get in trouble for saying this but after playing the game, I can honestly say I think the complaints are overblown. In a way, I can understand it. The story is told by Varric, a dwarf companion of Hawke, some time after the story had ended. As the story was about Hawke’s rise to power in Kirkwall, the geography is strictly in the city of Kirkwall and its surrounding regions. Also at the end of the story, Hawke didn’t save the world but arguably made things worse with his actions.

In short, Dragon Age 2 is a game that takes chances. It tried to take the unconventional route. And I enjoyed it for it!

I can understand why some people dislike it. The narrative of the story sort of limit the excitement and things can get tiring after the 10^th you go up Sundermount, but the way the story is structured, it make perfect sense why you are around Kirkwall.

Dragon Age 2 is not for everyone, that I have to agree, but for gamers who are tired of run-of-the-mill role-playing game, this is a game you want to try out. It’s not perfect but Dragon Age 2 certainly tired to attempts something different. And for that, it’s a game worth playing.

The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim

The Elder Scrolls! The very title gives RPG players a sense of wonder and with good reason. When I first finished Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I clocked in 100 hours before finishing it. It was that good of a game. I am happy to say that its sequel, Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, is just as good!

Skyrim is the name of a northern province in the Tamerial gameworld where the Elder Scrolls is located and IT IS HUGE! However Skyrim isn’t just big; it is beautiful. Everything was drawn beautifully and you could literally sense how much care and effort Bethesda took to ensure everything was gorgeous. Even for me, a guy who firmly believes gameplay and story are much more important than graphics, the landscapes of Skyrim are truly breathtaking.

The overall feel of the game was also top notch. The land of Skyrim is supposed to be mountainous and by the Nine Divines, Bethesda got that down. The mountains, valleys, meadows and people feel just right for the province and the meticulous attention to detail truly made Skyrim a joy to explore.  

Of course as a RPG, the game live and die on its’ quests. On this, Bethesda truly shines. The story of Skyrim wasn’t much to talk about (much like Oblivion), but the sheer variety of quests in the game more than made up for it. I have played over 100 hours and I still have about over 20 quests in my questbook to complete. Better yet, a few of the quests has a “Wow” factor (Hint; Dark Brotherhood) to them that were incredible!

There were some dark spots in the game though. For one, I found that there were a lot of bugs in the game and we are talking about major bugs here that will stop you from completing quests and storylines. I had to go online to find a way to go around the “forever mourning” bug that plagued the Companions quests and mind you, I played Skyrim months after it came out so I’m surprised there’s still such a major bug in the game.

Another bug is the inability to use new “Shouts”. This one drives me up the wall because “Shouts” are such an important ability in the story but outside the ones you learned in-story, there is just no way to learn new “Shouts”. Bethesda put in a lot of them as a sort of Easter egg but what’s the use of finding a new “Shout” in a dungeon when you can’t use it?

Another thing I dislike is the way cut scenes are handled in the game. All the cut scenes (with only a few exceptions) are done in-game. However everytime an NPC walks past you, the NPC will give a comment on your latest exploits. So what happen a few times is that I will be viewing a cut scene, enjoying the story between the characters and then a NPC (who is not involved in the scene) will walk by me and then gives a useless comment that ruined the whole cut scene.

Yes, I know I said the story is not one of the stronger points of the game but to me, this is a silly problem to have. How hard could it be to ensure that useless NPCs keep their mouth shut while you’re in the middle of a cut scene?

In the end however, I have to strongly recommend this game to gamers. While I agree with some people’s comments that Skyrim doesn’t do anything to address the weaknesses of Oblivion, to me it doesn’t really matter. Oblivion was a great game and you don’t need to fix what’s not broken. Despite the bugs, Skyrim gives you big, bold and beautiful open world that will make you waste your life for a month or three. It is a game with great depth and arguably even better than Oblivion. I fully expect it to be acknowledged as a classic in a few years time. Play it if you don’t believe me; you will not regret it.

Star Trek Online

Star Trek Online (STO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the popular Star Trek series. Developed by Cryptic Studios, the makers of Champions Online, the game launched to a lot of criticism in 2010 before Cryptic steadied the ship and moved the game to a F2P (free-to-play) format.

I will admit the Star Trek IP meant nothing to me and I avoided the game at launch due to the bad press. However since the game is now on Steam, I thought I gave it a try. It was a good decision as I found the game to be highly enjoyable.

The game is set in the 25th century and the player plays as the captain of their own ship. Players are able to pilot their ship in space, and can also beam down to planets and spaceports as a player character in an “away team” like in the Star Trek series. There are many missions/quests in the game which are very varied. I especially liked the way Cryptic separated the missions storywise. Diplomatic missions are missions that do not require any fighting, exploration missions are missions that require you to go into uncharted sectors, episode missions are missions that require fighting and are part of a larger story-arc. The decision to separate the missions this way make a lot of sense storywise and it's good to see the developers nodding at the way Star Trek should be.

One thing different about STO is that the design of the game offer players 2 different combat systems. During the space combat portion of the game, players need to position their ships to fully utilize their shields while during the away team portion, players lead an away team during ground combat. Personally I find the game's space combat to be very entertaining while the away team combat to be a little hit-and-miss. However both are fun in their own sort of way which is a good thing as most missions I had played through so far (especially the episode missions) required you to use both combat systems as the missions have both a space and away portion.

Star Trek fans would like this game as Cryptic stayed mostly true to the IP. Star Trek actors Zachary Quinto and Leonard Nimoy provided voiceovers in the game while most missions were filled with long logs that provide background stories to the game. The game also wasn’t shy about name-dropping. Kirk, Spock, Jean-Luc Picard, Wolf, Deep Space Nine; the game was filled with references to them.

I also enjoyed the Duty Officer System. The Duty Officer System allows players to assign NPC characters, called duty officers, to tasks both on and off the player's ship. Once the duty officer is assigned to a task, no further input is needed from the player to ensure its completion. This means that I could send the Duty Officer to a task and logout of the game. Once I am back in, if enough time has passed, the officer would return and I would gain in-game rewards for the completion.

Of course the game is not prefect. The mapping system is strange. A lot of times I have to re-read the mission text to find out exactly where I have to go and even then sometimes I can’t be sure as the name of the sectors and systems are slightly different at times. The leveling of the game also seem a little strange. I won’t say it’s a slow crawl like Global Agenda but the xp you gain on missions is a little off. Episode missions give you a lot of xp upon completion but other missions like exploration missions gave you almost nothing.

Still I have to say STO is a fun game that stayed true to its IP. It doesn’t do anything great but there’s enough uniqueness in the game to let it stand out from the other F2P MMOs out there. Definitely worth a play!

DC Universe Online

DC Universe Online (DCUO) is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) set in the DC Universe. Released by Sony Online Entertainment in January 2011, it was supposed to be the MMO that will rule the superhero MMO market.

That has not been the case as players had abandon the game and Sony had to convert the game to F2P (Free-to-Play) on November 1 to continue the game. In fact, it’s fair to say DCUO is now no. 3 in the superhero MMO Markey, behind Champions Online and City of Heroes. So…what went wrong?

I shall start off with what went right for the game.

DC fully supported the game with Geoff Johns being the principal writer of the story and Jim Lee being the game's Executive Creative Director. The story (which is about an alien invasion by the supervillain Brainiac) is interesting and the character designs are good.

DCUO is a good-looking game. The game itself is beautiful and you can clearly see that a lot of work had been put into the cities of Metropolis and Gotham City. I also got a kick out of fighting alongside the various heroes and villains of the DCU. I know some people complained that they are sidekicks to the main heroes like Superman or Batman but I don’t see why that’s a problem. I mean why are you are in a MMO called DC Universe Online if not to fight alongside Batman?

Leveling was also a breeze and I got a character to the max level of 30 in about 3 weeks (which was very quick for me). However when I went on to my secondary character, I found that the experience wasn’t that enjoyable. I have put some thought on why that is the case and think I have the answer.

The characters builds are just too similar. When players play the game, they have a choice of going into a damage mode or an alternate mode (healing/control/tank etc). On paper this sounds cool but in practice, it is far less so. This is because allowing everyone to go dps means you can have a team all doing the same thing! Basically, everyone goes damage and tried to knock down the boss before getting killed. It takes tactics out of the equation and many times, teams just pile on the boss.

More importantly, it means there isn’t much of a difference in the character builds! As everyone can go dps, outside the flashy animation, all the characters played the same. I believe it is why my alts couldn’t maintain my interest in the game. I just couldn’t see that much difference between my alt (which is an ice tank/dps) and my main (nature healer/dps)! It doesn’t help that there wasn’t that many powers to choose from in the first place.

When players first start the game, they have to create a character and the problem begins immediately. When the game was first launched, DCUO only have 6 power sets for players to choose from. Since the launch, two more power sets (Lighting, Light) have been introduced to make a grand total of…8!

That is just pathetic. Especially when you consider that City of Heroes give you close to 16 different powers to choose from at the start! Another problem is in the PS3 design of the game interface. DCUO is designed to be played both by the PC and PS3 and the console-focused interface of the game was very troublesome for me. I only had 8 slots for my powers and since 2 of them are taken by my potions, that means I only have 6 powers to choose from.

That is just sad and I believe is the main reason why DCUO went F2P within a year of launch. I have played all 3 superhero MMOs on the market and I have to rank DCUO behind Champions Online and City of Heroes. It’s not a bad game but the other 2 are just better.

Global Agenda

Global Agenda is an online shooter game by Hi-Rez Studios. Generally I do not play third-person shooters, much less a Team Fortress 2-style shooting game. However it’s a free-to-play (F2P) game and I had seen some the gameplay on Youtube. It looked like a fun game, it’s on Steam, so I figure why not?

Global Agenda takes place in the 22nd century when a global disaster and a “Third Great War” left parts of the Earth uninhabitable. A government called the Commonwealth now rules Earth with an iron fist and you are part of a rebel army fighting against the Commonwealth. The solo quests in the game has you escaping from the Commonwealth and joining up with the rebels before going into the desert to cure yourself of a virus given to you by the Commonwealth.

First off, Global Agenda is not your regular traditional MMO with elves, swords and sorcery. It is a game with jetpacks, guns and sniper rifles. There’s even melee for gamers who like their action close and personal. The game features four classes: Assault, Recon, Medic, and Robotics. All have customizable skill trees with their own weapons and their specific role in the game.

At its core, Global Agenda is a combination of a MMO and a FPS. There’s also a certain RPG element in the game and Global Agenda managed to combine these different genres into an exciting game that requires a certain level of skill from its players.

For new players of Global Agenda, I strongly they play the tutorial at least once. The starting tutorial has a good story and it introduced the basic gameplay pretty well. However the game itself is surprisingly deep so be prepare to learn the game as you go.

Although there’s a quest line for people to solo, the main meat of the game is in the PvP section of the game. The normal PvP mission pits 10vs10 in a random map with an objective to receive. The action is fast-paced with teamwork the name of the game.

The first time I played a PvP mission, I was like a headless chicken running around shooting at all enemies but after a few rounds, I discovered what my role was. Each class has a role in the game and your team need to work together to win. Don’t be intimidated by the teamwork needed in the game because although the gameplay is deep, it is also easy to pick up.

After a few rounds in the PvP, you will know the role your class is for and you will also get a lot of help from your random teammates. I remember a game when I was the sole Assault on my team. As the Assault is the tank class and my team was the defender in the scenario, I placed myself at the main entrance where the attackers would come in. I managed to hold them off as 2 Medics on my team were healing me like crazy and a few Recons hovered around me to make sure I don’t get swarmed by the attackers. As I was the only Assault, I was important and needed to stay alive.

Everyone on the team thought we were doomed at the start but we did win the mission through good teamwork. The best thing is that no one used the chat at all. Everyone just knows what they need to do and did it. That’s the kind of game Global Agenda is.

Of course there are a few bad spots in the game. The quest line in Global Agenda is too short. I usually run around doing the quest line while waiting for the PvP to pop, and even with such interruptions I managed to finish the quest line by level 20. And once you finish the quests, it’s PvP all the way which can be boring as you can find yourself just standing there while waiting for the PvP missions to pop.

Another problem I have is the slow leveling of the game. Although it is now F2P, in the past Global Agenda was a buy-2-play (B2P) game. Like Guild Wars, once you the buy the game you can play it for free. When Hi-Rez Studios converted the game to F2P, they introduced a system that spilt the players into Elite and Free Agents. Free Agents are players who joined the game after it went F2P while Elite Agents are players who had bought the game before it went F2P. Elite Agents has access to better weapon and armor in the game but the advantage is not so great that I had a problem with it.

What I do have a problem with is the slow crawl to level up my character! Free Agents get experience slower than their Elite Agent counterparts, and I mean a lot, lot slower! Once my Assault hit level 22, it practically stopped leveling! And since the level cap is 50, I’m putting my money on the fact that there are no Free Agents who managed to hit the level cap without paying for a few level boosters. I can understand the fact that Hi-Rez need to pay the bills but it is seriously bad!

Overall, I have to say Global Agenda is one fun game. It is exciting and has enough unique points about it that it will pip anyone’s interest. Run-of-the-mill is something this game is not. Play it and find out for yourself!

The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena

I love deals and discounts and you are not going to get deals better than “The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena”. Based on the poor “The Chronicles of Riddick” movie that almost destroyed the career of actor Vin Diesel, Assault on Dark Athena was released in 2009 as a prequel to the movie.

However Assault on Dark Athena is not the first game based on the Riddick world. In 2004, “The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay” was the first game released based on the world and the developers had decided to add Escape from Butcher Bay as a bonus game along with Assault on Dark Athena.

So you are getting two games for the price of one!

Now games based on movies have a well-deserved reputation for being terrible; after playing both games, I am happy to say this is not the case for either Escape from Butcher Bay or Assault on Dark Athena. Both games are good.

The Chronicles of Riddick are both science fiction first-person action games. You control Riddick as he sneaked around Butcher Bay and Dark Athena, trying to find a way out of both places. I played the games back to back and the story flowed. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay had Riddick escaping from the jail planet of Butcher Bay and Dark Athena continues where Butcher Bay left off with Riddick being captured by a group of ruthless mercenary after his escape from Butcher Bay and then trying to find a way off the mercenary’s ship called Dark Athena.

In terms of gameplay and story, there isn’t much difference between them. I guess it was a case of “if its not broken, don’t fix it” for the designers because there wasn’t a lot wrong. Both games used the same formula with Riddick using a combination of strange sci-fi weapons, stealth and hand to hand combat to stalk and kill his enemies. Anyone who had played any of the Splinter Cell games will feel right at home here.

The story of both games wasn’t much to shout about, the gameplay doesn’t really offer anything new but the sound and voice acting was top notch. As you crawled through the vents, walked along the dark corridors, fight against man and machines; all the experiences were accompanied by excellent sound. Even the dialogue between you and the NPCs was excellent.

The only real complain I have is that there is a certain case of “been there and done that” with the games. “The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena” does everything well, but it doesn’t offer anything new. If you are looking for a game that is offering something new and improved from regular stealth games like Splinter Cell, then you need to go elsewhere.

Still, outside that minor complain, I found “The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena” to be an excellent game. Both Dark Athena and Butcher Bay were good and it’s not often you can get 2 good games for the price of one. “The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena” is value for money and that is always good.

City of Heroes: Going Rogue

Last weekend, I spent my time going back to City of Heroes (CoH). CoH is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) based on the superhero genre. For a long time, it was the sole superhero kid on the block but with Champions Online and the upcoming (if delayed) DC Online, competition is now tough for publisher NCsoft.

The game started in 2004, so it is now 6 years old. To match up with the new kids on the block, NCsoft released an expansion, City of Heroes: Going Rogue. This is only the second expansion for CoH after 2005’s City of Villains (CoV). So it is the first full expansion in 5 years for the game and NCsoft incited former players back by having a free weekend trial with the Going Rogue expansion.

Entering the game for the first time in about a year, I decided to try out the new expansion. I logged on my level 50 Mind-Master and tried to find my way to Praetoria, the new playfield of CoH. I quickly found no way of doing so and broadcast a question on how to do so.

To my shock, I found out that I can’t! To enter Praetoria, you must create a new Praetorian character because Praetoria is a level 1-20 playfield. I’m still in shock about that but okay, I created a new Praetorian character and enter Praetoria for the first time. The new playfield was excellent. Most players are of the option that Praetoria is the best 1-20 playfield in the game and I am inclined to agree.

As an alternate Earth dimension, new characters begin as neutral Praetorian which means all the classes are available. The storyline of Going Rogue is also excellent as you can decide if you want to follow the good if tyrannical Emperor Cole or the freedom-fighting if chaotic Resistance.

There are various shades of gray in the storyline with neither side wholly good or wholly evil. City of Heroes: Going Rogue also has what can be called a moral system. In CoH or CoV, heroes are heroes (in Paragon City) and villains are villains (in the Rogue Isles). In Going Rogue, players will be faced with a series of missions where they can decide their character’s morality. Heroes who act evil can become Vigilantes and Villains who act heroically can become Rogues. Vigilantes and Rogues can access both sides of the game (Paragon City and Rogue Isles) but they cannot enter the Taskforce missions which are the level-50 missions of the game.

Even after they become Vigilantes and Rogues, players will have missions where they can switch sides completely to the opposite. These missions with moral choices are pretty well-done. The missions themselves are nothing new but the moral choices available make things interesting. However, will these new choices make me go out and buy City of Heroes: Going Rogue?

The answer is No!

During the free weekend, former players can only push their new characters to the maximum of level 14. I thought that was a strange limit to impose because the level limit is at 50 but I soon found out why. At Level 20, Praetorian characters will have a final mission where they have a choice to either become a Hero or a Villain and then they will enter either Paragon City or the Rogue Isles. The Going Rogue expansion only has playfields for level 1-20 characters!

No matter how good the playfields are, there are only 4 of them. How did NCsoft okay an expansion which has nothing for characters level 21-50? The recent Age of Conan expansion, Rise of the Godslayer, has a new level 1-20 playfield and about 4-5 other playfields for level 80 characters! Compare the 2 expansion and you add to that the fact old characters can’t even enter Praetoria at all; Going Rogue strikes me as pretty weak.

Also I have to wonder how serious was NCsoft about the free weekend. I never received any email about it and if I didn’t read about it in Massively (a MMORPG website), I would have no idea there was a free weekend for former players! How was NCsoft going to incite former players with a free weekend when the players don’t even know about it?

There is also a stability problem with the game. At several times, I lost “connection to the mapserver.” At first I thought it was my internet connection but when I was in a 6 man team, I found that 3 other players in the team have the same problems. That leads me to believe the problem should be pretty widespread.

The gameplay and playfield of City of Heroes: Going Rogue is good, the new storyline is great, and the new addition of moral choices is excellent. However the expansion is faced with some problems like nothing for characters above level 20, and old characters being unable to enter Praetoria. These design choices are a pity because the gameplay and storyline of Going Rogue are good.

Not F2P LOTR Online

It has been a week since Lord of the Rings Online went F2P. After trying out thegame for a week, I will say this.

It isn’t really F2P.

Like most F2P games, LOTR Online is going to make its money through their microtransaction store. Turbine Entertainment has made it that you “have” to use the store if you intend to go anywhere in the game.

In the F2P LOTR world, you will have free access to all quests in the starting areas till the city of Bree. Once you finished the quests of Bree, which would bring you till about level 25, expect to pay to go any further because everything beyond Bree is locked. To unlock all the quests in the areas, players need to pay for the quest packs at the Turbine store.

When I first saw it last week, I found it hard to believe that players will pay for the quest packs and instead thought players will try to power their way out of the zones, but I didn’t realize just how empty every area is in game once you leave Bree. I mean, there are literally no quests for you to do!

One of the most enjoyable things about LOTR Online in the past was that you are never without a quest as the whole game was filled with them. Not anymore!

I can’t help but say “Wow” and not in a good way. The way to buy quest packs (or anything) in the Turbine store is to get Turbine points which you can then use to purchase quest packs. You will have to either buy the Turbine points or finish the requirements on the deeds book.

That’s another problem this game face now as players (including me) are swamping the starter areas to finish all the deeds they are missing at the moment. I have a level 32 loremaster in the Shire which is a zone for level 10 players. I once saw a level 65 hunter near Bree killing level 16 mobs. Needless to say, this mining of mobs has caused imbalance in the game and new characters are now forced to complete for mob resources.

Entire zones outside Bree are almost empty of players. I ran my burglar from Bree to the Forsaken Inn in Lone Lands and did not see a single player the whole time. I had to run all the way to the city on the east side of the Lone Lands (forgot the name of the city) before I saw another player.

Maybe it’s still early and that’s why the zones are so imbalanced now but if it doesn’t change soon, I foresee a lot of problems for the game in the future. And for a game as fun as LOTR Online, that’s a waste.

Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition

One thing most people will discover about gamers is that they are a loyal bunch. Gamers can remember what games they played 10-15 years ago and how much fun they had playing those games. As such, game developers have discovered that if you can come out with a sequel, even if the game-play has little or nothing to do with the previous games in the series, you got it made.

Fallout 3 is one of those games. The first 2 Fallout games were turn-based RPG similar to X-COM, Fallout 3 is an action RPG. In fact outside the back-story, in terms of game-play and graphics, the games couldn’t be more different. Released by Bethesda Games (creators of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion), the game was released 2008 with a series of DLC (downloaded content) released after that. Being the cheapskate that I am, I waited till the Game of the Year Edition came out before buying it. Frankly I was never a Fallout fan and bought the game mostly on the back of Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

The story takes place in the year 2277, over 200 years after a nuclear war had devastated the world. In this world, the apocalypse happened because China and America were involved in a nuclear war and the whole world paid the price for it. The game starts with several (very) long cut scenes where you choose your gender, race, and skills. You are an inhabitant of Vault 101, a survival shelter designed to protect humans from the nuclear war 200 years ago. When your father, James, disappeared from the Vault, you are forced to escape as well and journey into the nuclear wasteland. You quickly discovered that the wasteland was located near the ruins of Washington D.C. and the locals called it the “Capital Wasteland”. As you chase after your father, you will learn why he left and the history of the world. You will also encounter several factions in the wasteland, including some who were in the previous games like the Brotherhood of Steel.

As an action RPG, Fallout 3 has a hybrid combat system. Mostly it’s a real-time shooter, however there is a system called VATS. When the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System is activated, combat is stopped and you are allowed to target various body-parts of the enemies. I found this to be very useful as injuries to specific body parts give me a big advantage in fights. Head injuries will cause enemies to stop attacking you for a short time, leg injuries can slow down enemies, etc.

It’s a system that works very well. The action is very exciting but with the VATS, you are never overwhelmed because of too much happening at the same time. The VATS also give the game-play a certain amount of strategy as VATS cost action points. It limit what actions you can take in VATS and forces you to decide what are the best actions you can take in the limited action points you have.

You can choose to improve your various skills every time you level up (Small Guns is a must!), and the character-leveling system is very flexible with a wide range of skills for you to choose from. In some ways the RPG portion of the game is very similar to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion.

In fact if you loved Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, I think it is fair to say you will love Fallout 3. Much like Oblivion, Fallout 3 has a huge map written many hidden locations throughout the map. If you follow the main quest only, you will hit less than a fifth of all the locations so players who like to explore are in for a treat. How you play your character also affect the game as some locations will only allow you in if you are either a good guy or a bad guy. You can also recruit companions who will follow you all over the Capital Wasteland. Whether these companions will follow you also depend on your alignment, for lack of a better word.

Despite the praise, I did find some things lacking in the game. Much like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, the story was almost an afterthought. As you run across the wasteland, the main quest will be about the last thing on your mind. In a way, this was because of how good the game was. You would be too busy looking at the interesting ruins of the long-dead civilization that was America, fighting against mutants, heading to the next hidden location to worry about something as inconsequential as looking for your missing dad.

I also found the DLC to be the worst part of the game by some distance. Frankly, compared to the main game, the DLC missions were terrible! Outside “Broken Steel”, I found the other DLC to be poor. None of them expanded on the story, and some of them were not even located within the Capital Wasteland. It seems to be a waste having all that open spaces and hidden locations, yet you need to go onto a spaceship to do new missions.

However all these were minor hiccups as for me Fallout 3 is a total hit. The game's combat system, huge map and flexible character-leveling system work very well and the game was a lot of fun. However I found the DLC missions to be lacking, and if you don’t mind missing the extra levels given to you by “Broken Steel”, it might be better to buy Fallout 3 than Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition. You won’t be missing much.