Or, Patching ain't easy.
So it's been a while since you got that game you waited so long for and you've noticed there are some issues with it that you hope the developers will fix in a patch or two. But depending on what kind of publisher/developer it is the results may vary.
Bethesda: "Bugs? Here's a patch to fix some of the issues- oops, I think we broke something. Mind waiting a while?"
Bethesda
is guy who while fixing something tends to break something completely
unrelated while doing it and then have to come back and fix that later
on and then breaks something else and has to come back and fix that...
Bioware: "Patches? Well have this one and this one then. Now get
lost, we're busy gigglesqueeing over this drawing of a character."
Bioware
can be best described as the kind of guy who is both filled with ideas
and the tenacity to see them through but as soon as they're done they
get put away for the next great idea or concept that has to be done.
(I'm aware this really doesn't work for TOR but it's an MMO and they need to be nurtured and cared for at all times anyway.)
Blizzard: "So we heard there are some issues in this game so here's a patch for it. Oh the game has been out for 4 or so years now? That doesn't matter at all really so have fun."
Blizzard is the kind of guy that while doing a lot of new things and taking his sweet time on it also remembers that some of his older stuff was pretty cool too and they may just need an extra bit of polish to them.
Bohemia Interactive Studios: "Here's a new patch and it's huge change log. Have fun and keep us posted of any new issues. And here's a final patch for one of our older games as well that we hope solves major issues. Have fun and do keep us posted about any other issues that might occur."
BIS is the guy that works slow but at the same time shows a surprising dedication and love for his projects for a long period of time before putting them away as they've then just become too old to really do something about.
Electronic Arts: "You have issues with one of our games? Please talk to our support and we'll get back to you later."
EA is the guy who is far too busy to really bother with patching or support. Well unless it's one of his major things that is obviously worth a lot of cash, then he'll get around supporting them. Otherwise he may just drop a couple of updates before moving on.
Obsidian: "There are bugs and problems in our games? Oh dear, here's a couple of patches but we're a bit too busy atm though."
Poor Obsidian is a bit overworked, he'd like to support his games as much as he could but he's got his fingers in too many pies and doesn't have enough time to deal with it all so some things never get the support it really needs. *coughalphaprotcolcough*
Ubisoft: "Patches? What do you mean we have to support our other
games? Fiiine. Have these and be off with you. No I don't care that they
introduce new issues."
Ubisoft is the guy who has a hard time
caring about supporting anything than his special little project despite
doing a lot of other stuff at the same time. If it doesn't begin with
Ass and end with Creed you can at best expect one or two patches who
barely fix anything and introduces new issues. After that he simply
stops caring.
Valve: "Updates? Why here's one for you. And here's a another one as well. And have a content update as well."
Valve is the guy who is passionate about several of his projects and just loves to further improve and change them continuously. He may not show everything the same level of passion maybe but the heart is in the right place.
P.S. This is all hyperbole.
1/12/12
1/11/12
Wahahahahaha~!
Or, My impressions of Katawa Shoujo.
Here's a question, what do you get when a bunch of people from 4chan get together to make a game inspired by an image from a Japanese artist?
Well in most cases the answer would be nothing at all but in this case you get a story about a guy who gets transferred to a school for disabled children and meets a diverse cast of characters and somewhere along the line finds a new perspective on life and perhaps love as well.
Here's a question, what do you get when a bunch of people from 4chan get together to make a game inspired by an image from a Japanese artist?
Well in most cases the answer would be nothing at all but in this case you get a story about a guy who gets transferred to a school for disabled children and meets a diverse cast of characters and somewhere along the line finds a new perspective on life and perhaps love as well.
12/30/11
The wheels on a car go round and round
Or, The search for a decent drive.
It is apparently really hard to make a game about fast cars that go fast on a road.
Admittedly that assumption is mostly hyperbole but at the same time it's an impression I keep getting from playing through some racing games that I've purchased over the past year. Or more specifically in this case Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.
Now TDU2 and NFS:HP do a lot of things in different ways, whereas HP has you drifting around corners without issues TDU2 has you doing slow speed turns as doing anything else will pretty much run you off the road.
And whereas NFS has problems with feeling gimmicky TDU2 has problem with just being generally bad if not very meh.
The biggest issue I have with Hot Pursuit is that it wraps up everything the base gimmick of cop versus racers and parts of the game suffers from it. The police section is rife with multiple gimmicks such as the rapid deployment mode which penalizes you for doing any mistake what so ever and as much as bumping into anything gives a time penalty. The racer section suffer mainly from the Hot Pursuit and Gauntlet modes where both feel more than 3v1 or 2v1 fights rather than races or time trials.
But at the same time there are glimmers of a good game in there. When it clicks it really does click well as some of the tracks have some gorgeous backdrops and there is something incredibly enjoyable to do a drifting turn around a corner and just see a huge mountain range appear in front of you. Not to mention driving feels just right, the cars handle well, they look good and they sound good. It is on those points that the game works very well.
The main issue I have with TDU2 is that it feels unfinished or could've needed a rethink at places. It's promising game that manages to bumble it away by trying to do too much and never really do it well in very uninspiring environments. All this wrapped up in a shoddily executed PC port with clunky menus and a poor if not non-existent physics engine.
The game tries to be a Forza or Gran Turismo game but at the same time they decided to add an open world with free roaming alongside avatar and housing functions and then subsequently lost their focus halfway to the finish line.
The game is fun occasionally, even if its driving experience feels a bit lacking just because there isn't much room to drive on. It feels very unfinished and could've probably benefited for a lot more polish. Or possibly a rework into something more solid.
The fact that TDU2 is going to get a DLC this far late after the game's release is a nice thought but one wonders if it isn't a bit too late now.
To me it seems increasingly difficult for some developers to make a "normal" car game. While they exist there still seem to be a lack of games that doesn't try to wrap themselves up in various gimmicks or unnecessary things. Then again it seems the logical progression in many ways, especially for Need for Speed which has been around since the middle of the 90's turning the driving into a spectacle seems partly like the way to go in order to stay interesting. But at the same time it's almost important to keep in mind that the gimmick shouldn't try to take over the fact that the game is about cars going fast on roads, and considering the way NFS game has developed recently I wonder if that isn't getting a bit lost in an urge just to provide the player with an experience.
It's interesting to note that the console is in many regards having an upper hand in the racing genre with their major franchises such as Forza Motorsports and Gran Turismo. Where is the PC equivalent of those series for instance?
However there are some promising games coming out next year or so, in particular Auto Club Revolution, Project CARS and Assetto Corsa that looks to deliver a similar experience in line with what you might find on consoles but the question still remains.
Why isn't there more of them?
It is apparently really hard to make a game about fast cars that go fast on a road.
Admittedly that assumption is mostly hyperbole but at the same time it's an impression I keep getting from playing through some racing games that I've purchased over the past year. Or more specifically in this case Test Drive Unlimited 2 and Need for Speed Hot Pursuit.
Now TDU2 and NFS:HP do a lot of things in different ways, whereas HP has you drifting around corners without issues TDU2 has you doing slow speed turns as doing anything else will pretty much run you off the road.
And whereas NFS has problems with feeling gimmicky TDU2 has problem with just being generally bad if not very meh.
The biggest issue I have with Hot Pursuit is that it wraps up everything the base gimmick of cop versus racers and parts of the game suffers from it. The police section is rife with multiple gimmicks such as the rapid deployment mode which penalizes you for doing any mistake what so ever and as much as bumping into anything gives a time penalty. The racer section suffer mainly from the Hot Pursuit and Gauntlet modes where both feel more than 3v1 or 2v1 fights rather than races or time trials.
But at the same time there are glimmers of a good game in there. When it clicks it really does click well as some of the tracks have some gorgeous backdrops and there is something incredibly enjoyable to do a drifting turn around a corner and just see a huge mountain range appear in front of you. Not to mention driving feels just right, the cars handle well, they look good and they sound good. It is on those points that the game works very well.
The main issue I have with TDU2 is that it feels unfinished or could've needed a rethink at places. It's promising game that manages to bumble it away by trying to do too much and never really do it well in very uninspiring environments. All this wrapped up in a shoddily executed PC port with clunky menus and a poor if not non-existent physics engine.
The game tries to be a Forza or Gran Turismo game but at the same time they decided to add an open world with free roaming alongside avatar and housing functions and then subsequently lost their focus halfway to the finish line.
The game is fun occasionally, even if its driving experience feels a bit lacking just because there isn't much room to drive on. It feels very unfinished and could've probably benefited for a lot more polish. Or possibly a rework into something more solid.
The fact that TDU2 is going to get a DLC this far late after the game's release is a nice thought but one wonders if it isn't a bit too late now.
To me it seems increasingly difficult for some developers to make a "normal" car game. While they exist there still seem to be a lack of games that doesn't try to wrap themselves up in various gimmicks or unnecessary things. Then again it seems the logical progression in many ways, especially for Need for Speed which has been around since the middle of the 90's turning the driving into a spectacle seems partly like the way to go in order to stay interesting. But at the same time it's almost important to keep in mind that the gimmick shouldn't try to take over the fact that the game is about cars going fast on roads, and considering the way NFS game has developed recently I wonder if that isn't getting a bit lost in an urge just to provide the player with an experience.
It's interesting to note that the console is in many regards having an upper hand in the racing genre with their major franchises such as Forza Motorsports and Gran Turismo. Where is the PC equivalent of those series for instance?
However there are some promising games coming out next year or so, in particular Auto Club Revolution, Project CARS and Assetto Corsa that looks to deliver a similar experience in line with what you might find on consoles but the question still remains.
Why isn't there more of them?
12/25/11
Seeing as everybody else does it.
Or, The year in review.
Seeing as we are nearing the end of the year (the end of the world is for next year remember) and everybody (well pretty much everybody) rounds up how the year has been so I might as well do it as well.
So here goes!
Meh.
That is all.
Happy new year I guess.
Seeing as we are nearing the end of the year (the end of the world is for next year remember) and everybody (well pretty much everybody) rounds up how the year has been so I might as well do it as well.
So here goes!
Meh.
That is all.
Happy new year I guess.
11/6/11
Sometimes it's just better to be simple
Or, what do you mean I can't play the same character as last time?
Let me tell you a story of two characters, two very different characters created for two different campaigns of the same RPG system.
And my complete inability in attempting to play them differently.
Okay that's a bit harshly put perhaps but the thing is that while my RPG experience isn't the biggest I've come to notice that I do seem have some issues with playing characters differently from each other.
One hand I've got my first character for Exalted, Tepet Revvie. Well her full name is Tepet Revvie "Tarnished Orchid" Edalaika but the last bits fell off at one point and I'm not missing them that much truth to be told.
Anyway, Revvie was the first character I rolled up for the system, and like most first characters she is partly a mess. Her backstory can be summed up with "Left for dead by unknown assassins" and that was pretty much it and then there was a lot of things not really fleshed out about her like her motivations and goals for instance.
I didn't care about it so much really and figured I'd hammer it out as the campaign went on. Which was the case.
And then on the other hand I've got my second character for the same system. So when a second campaign was about to start I began building a character based on the lessons I learned from earlier and the end result became the forest ranger/archer Winter Dawn of Amber Hill. His backstory was a lot more expanded than Revvie's with him growing up in a remote village and falling in love and marrying the girl of his dreams and then having his whole life shatter when she gets abducted and he sets out trying to find her and bring her back with the help of his godly powers he gained while trying to rescue her.
So a lot more elaborated and worked out with a clearer goal and motivation than before.
But the thing is that I've always enjoyed playing Revvie more than I enjoyed playing Winter. Mostly because I always had a hard time coming up what I really wanted his character to be.
For Revvie I had a bit of a shaky as well but after a while I just came into a sort of natural groove with her with playing her as slightly snarky and a tend to run her mouth quite a bit but at the same time she was caring for the people closest to her.
But for Winter I never really seemed to get in this groove.He never seemed to develop into something solid character-wise and just felt muddled. Did I want him to be good natured or did I want him to ruthless in his pursuit? Or did I want him to be nice but an utter monster in finding and dealing with his wife's captors? Never really managed to figure that out and the character suffered for it.
It's kinda hard to explain really but the main problem is that I lacked the necessary drive for the character. His wife had been kidnapped and everything and yet I never seemed to drive that point on. Mostly because I was probably afraid it'd make him look a bit of a whingy bastard with constantly trying to bring that up but at the same time I missed the chance of using that to my advantage.
In hindsight I realize I probably should've watched Taken or something and tried to base my character on Liam Neesons character there since the scenario used is kinda similar and it would've been a great basis to use.
If I would name one factor to why Revvie is so fun to play is that, on a basic level, she's very simple. She doesn't have any major motivation that drives her other than she enjoys the company of her friends and would walk through hell if necessary for them to stand by their side. That basic simplicity works so well in her case compared to the elaboration I went through with Winter and how that just fell through via my lack of fleshing him out in the right way I needed to do and instead of giving him a goal driving him onwards I should've looked more into who he was instead.
Which I guess is a lesson I need to remember for future characters.
Let me tell you a story of two characters, two very different characters created for two different campaigns of the same RPG system.
And my complete inability in attempting to play them differently.
Okay that's a bit harshly put perhaps but the thing is that while my RPG experience isn't the biggest I've come to notice that I do seem have some issues with playing characters differently from each other.
One hand I've got my first character for Exalted, Tepet Revvie. Well her full name is Tepet Revvie "Tarnished Orchid" Edalaika but the last bits fell off at one point and I'm not missing them that much truth to be told.
Anyway, Revvie was the first character I rolled up for the system, and like most first characters she is partly a mess. Her backstory can be summed up with "Left for dead by unknown assassins" and that was pretty much it and then there was a lot of things not really fleshed out about her like her motivations and goals for instance.
I didn't care about it so much really and figured I'd hammer it out as the campaign went on. Which was the case.
And then on the other hand I've got my second character for the same system. So when a second campaign was about to start I began building a character based on the lessons I learned from earlier and the end result became the forest ranger/archer Winter Dawn of Amber Hill. His backstory was a lot more expanded than Revvie's with him growing up in a remote village and falling in love and marrying the girl of his dreams and then having his whole life shatter when she gets abducted and he sets out trying to find her and bring her back with the help of his godly powers he gained while trying to rescue her.
So a lot more elaborated and worked out with a clearer goal and motivation than before.
But the thing is that I've always enjoyed playing Revvie more than I enjoyed playing Winter. Mostly because I always had a hard time coming up what I really wanted his character to be.
For Revvie I had a bit of a shaky as well but after a while I just came into a sort of natural groove with her with playing her as slightly snarky and a tend to run her mouth quite a bit but at the same time she was caring for the people closest to her.
But for Winter I never really seemed to get in this groove.He never seemed to develop into something solid character-wise and just felt muddled. Did I want him to be good natured or did I want him to ruthless in his pursuit? Or did I want him to be nice but an utter monster in finding and dealing with his wife's captors? Never really managed to figure that out and the character suffered for it.
It's kinda hard to explain really but the main problem is that I lacked the necessary drive for the character. His wife had been kidnapped and everything and yet I never seemed to drive that point on. Mostly because I was probably afraid it'd make him look a bit of a whingy bastard with constantly trying to bring that up but at the same time I missed the chance of using that to my advantage.
In hindsight I realize I probably should've watched Taken or something and tried to base my character on Liam Neesons character there since the scenario used is kinda similar and it would've been a great basis to use.
If I would name one factor to why Revvie is so fun to play is that, on a basic level, she's very simple. She doesn't have any major motivation that drives her other than she enjoys the company of her friends and would walk through hell if necessary for them to stand by their side. That basic simplicity works so well in her case compared to the elaboration I went through with Winter and how that just fell through via my lack of fleshing him out in the right way I needed to do and instead of giving him a goal driving him onwards I should've looked more into who he was instead.
Which I guess is a lesson I need to remember for future characters.
11/3/11
Human Battlefield Revolution 3
Or, My Game of the Year candidates
I know it is perhaps a little bit too early to call that out seeing as it's still two months until the new year comes around and there are other major titles coming up on the horizon especially this month but in my case I have found my two suitable candidates for the choice of singleplayer and multiplayer game of the year.
I know it is perhaps a little bit too early to call that out seeing as it's still two months until the new year comes around and there are other major titles coming up on the horizon especially this month but in my case I have found my two suitable candidates for the choice of singleplayer and multiplayer game of the year.
9/6/11
An old game review
This is an old review I wrote on the Gamespot user reviews way back in 06 for the first (and only) SiN Episodes game and felt like posting it. It's one of my better (not to mention shorter) reviews I've written but far off from perfect.
Almost a pity we never saw more of SiN episodes because it may just have been something. Maybe.
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