Bewildered Bain's blog full o'bullshit

Christ almighty, has it been that long since I last posted anything? Being made permanent and then getting my dream job in litigations has taken me out of the loop, even on my own site! Somehow though I’ve managed to log over 40 hours in this game despite overtime and working full time on top of that… I guess that says something about my social life or lack thereof, excuse me a moment while I pour myself a goblet of scotch while I tell you about the next instalment of the Elder Scrolls series.

Skyrim, set in northern Tamriel on the border with Cyrodiil: it is home to the Nords (Vikings) and rampaging dragons, typical fantasy fare you might be thinking to yourself, but no! It’s not about just that at all, it’s about messin’ with the set dressin’. What can you do in Skyrim, well just about anything you want – go mining for ores to make your own armor and wear it; hell, sell it for profit if you so choose. Want to become an alchemist and sell your potions? Feel free, there’s more than enough ingredients to find as well as the rarer variety to find in the many caves and nooks dotted around the immense landscape. Not since Daggerfall has there been a TES game that has given you the freedom to do this.

Sure, the hardcore TES fan could say that Morrowind and Oblivion did this, well to you I say one word: streamlined. It’s so accessible that you don’t need to plan out ahead of time. In Morrowind the interface was clunky and cumbersome making potion making a chore rather than something you’d actually want to do in a game and smithing wasn’t an option, you simply couldn’t make armour. More time would be spent failing to make potions than actually making them, not to mention running around with alchemy supplies weighed you down making it more difficult to actually get away during a hairier moment (if you’re an alchemist, chances are you’re not actually a honking great warrior in a clunky steel outfit). In Oblivion there was just no point to anything because exploration was a complete waste of time due to repetitious environments with no incentive to do anything other than the quests which were, it its defence, quite interesting.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved Morrowind to death and still go back every now and then to relive moments from the early 2000′s but going back now there was no denying its flaws, even for the time. Now I’m older, greyer, busier and more impatient I need something more streamlined but at the same time giving me the option to do what I want without needing to read several FAQs about making the perfect character, I can just do it.

The combat is awesome, way better than Morrowind (I don’t include earlier titles because they were DOS games made in 1994 and 1996 and worked well for the heavily modified Build Engine) and somewhat better than Oblivion with not much being changed in the interim other than a few additions such as epic death blows which always make me cringe when they happen because it looks pretty painful. Magic is also much more refined, allowing you to combine spells, hold a weapon and cast the spell and not to mention it’s pretty to look at when people spontaneously combus.

I’ve spent so much time screwing around and exploring that a lot of quests and story have passed me by so  I’ll have to review that at a later date. Not too many flaws as yet that I’ve encountered but being a Bethesda game not renowned for its stable games (on PC) it does have the potential to lose points but since I’ve had only one odd crash I can’t really give it a strike against it.

Nerds rejoice: 9/10

I haven’t forgotten how to make blog posts… honest(!) Normally no game gets me that interested enough to write about it, not even my most under appreciated game of all time, Jade Empire, got a write up at the time. That being said, I didn’t have a blog in 2005 nor huge amount of motivation or time to write anything. I may have been in a coma that year. I don’t honestly remember.

Any way, enough prattle – L.A. Noire. What can  be said about this game? It’s simply a joy, it takes me back to the old adventure games of my youth which were vastly more linear and usually involved some horrible full motion video using ham-fisted actors, phoning it with cornball dialogue. Despite all that it involved actively using your brain and nothing was handed to you on a plate. Fortunately those years are behind us and now we have digitised actors, open world environments, cases to solve, crime to clean up and all in the style of post-war 1940s Los Angeles.

I’ve only played about 5 or 6 hours of this game and I’m addicted. Rockstar have created something very innovative and dare I say, new? It’s not new in some sense I know, we’ve had problem solving games for years, but never like this. You actually feel like a detective, you go out into the world, solving crime, investigate crime scenes, visit the homes of suspects, question them, interrogate them, take them on in shoot outs when things go bad. I’ve never played a game quite like this. The look and feel of 1940s L.A. is breathtaking; the building recreation, the cars, the music on the radio stations, the clothing designs is all first rate. It’s grit covered in a fine layer of gloss and encapsulates the post-war generation where tinseltown wasn’t all it was cracked up to be beneath the hype.

Only bad thing I would say is that the game puts a lot of emphasis on gauging the reactions of the suspect in order to choose you responses. The game doesn’t make  this abundantly clear most of the time resulting on the interview going south and missing out on vital evidence. But hey that could also just my lack of intuition. I hold my hands up, I’d make a lousy detective and this game just points out my weaknesses in that area. Thank god I have the ability to reload.

8.5/10

Okay, I thought I had said all that I needed to say with regard to this horses arse of a game but no, you’re not done with me that easily, game. Not by a long shot!

The story! The fucking story! There is none! Know how I said there is no cohesion in the beginning? Well it doesn’t get any better, oh no. In the middle of the game there’s some attempted take over by the Qunari, who represent nothing of what was initially established by the first game (look like Dranei too I might add, something the first game did not give us any reason to believe they looked like), and then for no reason at all say the Qunari leader says he respects Hawke and then leads a revolt to take over Kirkwall… great. Why? Why did they do this? There’s some nonsensical reason given but it is so flimsy and without explainable logic that it is just there so we can get to more of the ball numbing action that the stupid people crave.

And then… the third chapter. The culmination of this completely unfocussed plot that has thus far lacked any motivation for your character to even get out of bed in a morning. You know how we had Qunari revolt in the second chapter? Well the third chapter does not mention this again and now we’re talking about the oppression of mages by the templars… what the christ? Are you fucking shitting me? Did anyone read the script for this trash or were they just looking at the cliff notes? Up until now we’ve had vague hints about how Knight Commander Meredith has been oppressing the mages, but it was just background fluff and we haven’t at all focussed on any of these events except for a few loose affiliation of side quests that take place in the same tired locations ad nauseum and a bit of dialogue from the completely ridiculous Anders who should have stayed in Awakenings (no surprise his previous voice actor turned this shit down).

I’m not even spoilering this shit, there’s no point, the story is so devoid of any logic at all that I don’t give a crap. Essentially you pick a side: Mages or Templars, and what happens? Good ending, bad ending maybe? No, absolutely not. You end up fighting both the First Enchanter and Knight Commander Meredith, regardless of who the fuck you sided with. The ending? No variation at all, it’s exactly the sodding same. The Champion disappears and we’ll leave it for the “The Maker to decide”, quotes Leliana. Fuck. This. Game.

How could you do it Bioware? How the fuck could you green light this shit? Even a cursory glance at this by someone who isn’t believing their own hype, while sniffing their own farts with glee, could tell you this shit makes no sense at all and is fucking trash. Just for that insufferably bad ending that is nothing more than an ambiguous cliffhanger to set up another cash in sequel that’s probably already in development to bring in more cash for your already over budget attempt at making an MMO that shouldn’t have been, you lose 1 more rank.

4/10

Or should I say Dragon Effect 2… yes this game is… not bad, but certainly inferior to the first game. I was mucho  hyped about this game when I heard it was coming out – but slowly I started  hearing titbits that it was totally revamped and “hotrodded” for the stupid community.

Bioware was reported to have wanted to compete with the Call of Duty franchise and sell 10 million units of this game… and in order to do this, “hotrodded” it, as previously mentioned. This involved gutting most RPG elements that were present in the first one. These include: freedom of choice (conversation paths now lead to the same place, regardless of response), inventory management (mostly gone, can’t equip followers with armour or alter their appearance in any way except for their personal quests a la Mass Effect 2) and added a voiced character (which is worse than Commander Shepard).

I grew up in an age of old style RPGs which was mostly all text based on my old Vic 20 or BBC machine.  Later it was top down and incorporated graphics (not good by today’s standard but great back then) and lots of customisation options, varied story (clichéd, but Jesus it was more focused  than this schlock), thoughtful side quests (not stupid fetch quests in the same environments), conversation options that actually feel like you have some form of choice. Ultimately, this was your story. Hell one of my favourite RPGs to this day is Baldur’s Gate 1/2 and expansions as well as Neverwinter Nights and their expansions were made by Bioware. Which is why I cannot understand why they’ve felt the need to make this into a derivative of Mass Effect 2.

Where’s the love Bioware? Why are you selling out, why are you more focussed on appealing to the casual gamer and mass market (re morons crowd)? Is this EA’s doing? I know you run a business, but god damn, you got into this business to make RPGs, not to make first person shooters.  That you want to compete with today’s newest trends (see shooting shit up) is not OUR problem. Close the studio, make an upstart company to compete with Raven, Infinity Ward, Treyarch and their ilk, but stop dumbing down and rushing this shit out the door. I know Dragon Age was in development hell for years, but this is nothing more than a blatant cash in that won’t see 10 million sales, you’re in totally the wrong gamers marker for that. Also the scores for this “triple A” title are not one would expect to see, and for good reason (mid 80′s at last check). I hope this gives you pause Bioware, but I doubt it since the fanboys will eat this shit up and condone this behaviour, encouraging more rubbish.

I recently bought Brieann the first game and by god I’m glad they made at least one good game in the franchise, because if this had been the end result of years of effort I don’t think the franchise would have got off the ground. Your greed may have cost you more than you know. A soul.

I’m presently running around flummoxed as to what exactly I should be doing. There’s no focus, I’m doing too many things at once. Who’s the antagonist in this game? What is my goal? Do I go save up money for an… expedition? Or is my true goal getting my family’s estate back? What the fuck is my motivation? At this point in the first game, the battle lines were drawn and I was clear who was doing what and what I should have been doing. All I know is I’m aimlessly wandering about. Additional to this point is, where was my beginning? A story must have a beginning. I don’t know where the beginning started or where it ended. Am I at the beginning now, in Kirkwall? Or is this the second chapter? Maybe it gets better later, but this isn’t Dragon Age. I’m not feeling the same love I felt when I first bought the first one.

Verdict: 5/10, not a bad game, but an obvious cash in. I expected better.

Edit: Oh, and it includes intrusive DRM that was not disclosed to the customer. Great.