Easter... Egg? Gothcon

Brains...?

So Easter have come and gone and for me that most of the time means spending time in Gotheburg attending the Swedish boardgame/miniture/TCCG/RPG convention Gothcon. Now as far as international cons goes this is a small one with around 2000 people (that can be reliably tracked). But as far as this type of conventions goes in the Nordic region it is one of the larger. Beyond that things would feel fairly similar to other cons, you play games, hang out with people you only see once or twice a year and spend money on stuff you probably should not spend money on like... well..more games. 

But first and foremost it is the atmosphere that gets me every time. Because no matter how protective and elitist different sub-factions of physical gaming culture can get (and trust me... it can) once you set foot inside the con, you are at home. Around you are people who are as if not more geeky and nerdy as you are and nobody judge you for it. This of course rings true for any sub-culture con but since i am a gamer and i this is my hobby. This is where i call home 

So what did i do over these four days? Well apart from having a look at a metric ton of stuff i liked to buy i took the time to sit down with some games i was unable or unlikely to be able to play at home. It was nice to be able to play games and not mind the real world outside. The highlight of the weekend was oddly enough a tiny storytelling RPG. One of those that you pick a random scenario and just roll with it. Ours was a team of the most failed superheroes this side of the Great Lake Avengers. But it is a type of game i really enjoy when i am in the right mode because it lets me flex my storytelling muscles. I think the game it self was called Followers or some such. Anyway getting to sit down with a table of people and together weave a story is something that always have and i hope always will bring warmth to my heart. 

Now fortunate enough for me i do not have to wait very long for the next con as we have one coming up in my home town in about a month. expect a more in-depth write up of that one as i can get some decent sleep during that con. The perks of being withing walking distance. 

Anyway, that was just a quick update on what i have been up to. For a review of the games i played head over to spelkult.se in the coming week or so. 

Until next time

Stay safe, be kind and play fair. 

Bye. 

Splitting reality.

So in the recent history of video-gaming there has been some serious talks about nipping and tucking content. It started with Day1 DLC and similar. Something that most people feel miffed about (but most often to me seemed to be a bored art and asset team putting in a few extra hours.) and while we did not really see the nightmare scenarios materialize. But it is not open to debate that we today have a culture of micro expansions and other forms of DLC in pretty much every game. Enter Telltale Games. The by today crowned masters of episodic content re-wrote much of how games would be released. They proved that a good idea did not need a complete game. Rather they took a cue from TV and told their story in small bite sized chunks.

With this came a new dawn. One we are just seeing the effect of. More and more companies try their hand at carving their games up and selling them ala carte. The biggest names right now being the FF7 reboot and the upcoming Hitman game. Now I have no real problem with this approach as long as the design from the start is to produce the game episodically. Since you really need to have the pacing down to a pat. Each episode having its own narrative structure. To see if Sqeenix can do that with the FF7 game will be interesting, because that game will need all the help it can get. If nothing else it will be a horrid train wreck and we all go back to playing the original.

Now as for hitman you would think the design of the game would make it perfect for episodic content. Make each contract an episode. Fill it out with the overarching story and let the player do them at their own pace. If well designed Hitman contracts have several solutions and paths to said solutions. But here is the thing… The game in question have changed model about twice a day. So to now carve up a game that was not designed for episodic content to begin with can lead to some very awkward storytelling and really poor pacing. It also tells of a really poor confidence in the product. Now going forward this could turn in to a really annoying trend, because companies love to lower the barrier of entry and being able to do so without the stigma of F2P must sound really tempting. But it is also a very different way of making games and I doubt that many companies have the agility and flexibility to pull it off.

But what I look forward the most is when the asset flipping early access trash that populate the dark side of Steam figure out this… Not only will they sell you shit games, but they will sell you shit game chopped up like a game tartar. 

That will be glorious. 

Dividing the Division

So I had the opportunity to take a look at Ubisofts now shooter franchise called the Division as they did a stress test this weekend. The game is a third person shooter, which is to say that the camera in the game is placed slightly above and behind the player character. So you will always see the world as a little drone flying behind your in-game avatar. Beyond that you pretty much just use a variety of guns and shoot at a variety of humans that for some reason seem to have a disagreement with you. You find new stuff and level up in classic role-playing fashion as you follow a set story. That is the short of it.

Now if one where to flesh things out a bit more one would start with talking about the story, what little we know about it. Basically some form of bio weapon goes off in New York on black Friday in a not too far future. As panic and pandemonium rise “the Division” springs in to action. A covert agency with sleeper agents formed in to small cells their mission is to secure the city and restore order by any means possible. You are one such agent. This is about all we know right now but as we get closer to the release I guess more info will be made available.

So you start out as a newly activated agent, given some basic equipment and told to secure a foothold on Manhattan. The stress test was limited to a small section around Chelsea Pier and up to Madison Square Garden. But the full game will include a slightly scaled down version of the island of Manhattan. Once you get the HQ up and running it will be your hub for missions, upgrades and all the cozy home improvement an agent could need. The game more or less have two modes. The first you encounter is a single player instance that let you and some of your friends work through the story. This thing is instanced and no random players will show up. The other part are what is called the Dark Zones. These areas have much higher levels of contamination and act as player against player areas as well as regular computer controlled opposition. Going in here ill-prepared will lead to a quick and merciless death. But this is also the place to get the best gear and other rewards.

Now as I mentioned the game takes place in Manhattan for now (no word on when or if other parts of New York will be added.) and this is not some random jumble of buildings with a few landmarks thrown in to sell the illusion. No this is sometimes an eerily close recreation of the areas in the beta. Sure we still see most work go I to the landmark areas and they are a picture perfect recreation. But the rest of the map seem to be close enough that you could use visual confirmation and google street view to navigate. The rest of the visuals are as impressive. The weather look good from the sunny days to the full on snowstorms that set your vision to about a few meters. Now my computer does not have the power needed to render this in it´s full glory but i´l provide a small clip here to show you what it might look like.

The game also has some really impressive AI that act much like a player would, trying to avoid your attacks and flank you. They also tend to look for better cover when you move on them and should you overpower them sometimes they turn tail and run. Another really impressive thing I how your bullet interacts with the many cars that are spread over the maps. I did at one point manage ti line up a shot through three cars and in to the tire of a truck, not only did the tire pop but I could trace the patch of the bullet through the windows of the cars. These small details does a lot to immerse you in the environment

Now it is hard to tell if the game will become repetitive and how well the story pans out but so far I have seen a good variety of side missions ranging from repairing antennas to tracking down a missing person. As far as gar goes the game so far have done a good job at making the guns and equipment not only feel useful hut also unique. There is a distinct difference between the m-4 and the ak-47 beyond the visuals. Same goes for the skills and gadgets you pick up along the way, they all have their use and promote one type of gameplay or another. This way your character plays different and customization goes more than skin deep.

Now that bring me to the skin you inhabit in the game. I did not play around very much with the physical editor to much as I was short on time but once in-game there is a slew of modern clothing to make your avatar stand out from all the other backpack tooting gun nuts trying to retake the city. These are cosmetic and have no impact on your stats so you never have to give up that awesome beanie you just found because that headband had +2 killing on it.

So to sum it up, the Division seems to be a solid game and while some cuts had to be done since the first reveal such as tablet controlled drone strikes and the slight downscaling of Manhattan it is massive step forward for games published by Ubisoft. So I simply tip my hat to Ubisoft Massive and wish them the best. 

I run with The Crew again.

So as some people know the Crew from Ubisoft have been released and despite losing out on some sweet pre-order loot (who can say no to free cars in a car game) I did not do the whole dance and song of buying a game sight unseen. Especially as my experience during the beta was less than stellar in the driving department and lacked some serious online presence… Not very good thing for an online racing game… Add to that the whole embargo on reviews until the game was released and it was pretty much impossible for me to dip before.

But at its core the game was still fun and the PC beta was some good months before release. Much did happen. Especially the improvements to the early cars and how they handle. So I picked it up as my early Christmas gift to myself (ain´t being adult grand) and have sunk a few hours, getting myself up to level ten and finding my first hidden car. Now the game still lack a bunch in the online department and calling it a MMO is using the widest definition of the term as it is very limited in the amount of people you can see and interact with. It also have bugs… But what the fuck does not these days so I am not going to bother with that. If they are not fixed in a month I might consider climbing the barricade.

 

still very much carporn

Now most of what I said in my preview post  about The Crew still stands, the game is still very nice looking and the relaxed feeling of taking your favorite car on a cross country trip with no other goal then to drive is... relaxing and well perhaps not fun in the traditional sense but it give you a sense of freedom that few other racing games do. It is also very fun in its blatant disregard for realism and well often laws of physics. Taking your car and parking it at the top of Pikes Peak… Taking in the scenery… And then put the pedal to the medal down the Cliffside with no other goal then to see how fast you get to the bottom if liberating. The music range from great to passable depending on your taste in music buuut on does miss the talk shows from the GTA series. A minor nitpick in the grand scheme of things.

Now the game is not without flaws, the controls are still a bit squirrely and it is easy to overcorrect. Also this game is a console port… Do not event think of trying to play the game without at least a controller. It is simply not doable in my opinion. The content is also a problem, as varied as it is both in task and difficulty… It gets old fast. Now this is not much the games fault, it is a competent arcade racer and had it not tried to be something more I would not even bring it up here. But with the overarching goal of being a MMO of some type it would have needed something more, maybe some more wacky or instanced “cinematic“ sets?

Then it is the “story”… The legacy the games carry from more traditional racers. Not only are we hard locked in to the whitest dude since sliced toast. Thik what would happen if Freeman from Half-Life had a lovechild with Walter White from Breaking Bad… Now feed that child a steady diet of the Fast n Furious… Presto… It is so predictable I expect Michelle Rodrigues to pop up and try to screw me over. But I guess it does a passable to job to explain what could have been done with a normal tutorial. This does sort of lead me to the in my mind biggest flaw.

Customization.

Not only can you not change who you “are”… Because no matter how muc I like to I am not going to see myself as a car… I leave the up to Pixar.  But the car itself seriously lack in the customization department. Certain looks are tied to the games “class” system and other are simply not there for one arbitrary reason or other such as some paints and decals. For a game that says the car will be a reflection of me… They lock a good amount behind weird walls, I can understand that my dune racer need beefier suspension and wheels… but why not let me go a bit crazy with what I put on it...? The cynic in me say that it is because they need to put something in the cash shop.

Now one nice thing was that if one have 100 UPlay points you get a free Dodge Viper... that unlike 99% of Dodge Vipers in games do not suck. It is actually really fun. But the down side is ofc that you need UPlay to play the game. Ubisofts own little game platform still need some love and is not the most efficient snippet of code. But it is getting better.

So to sum things up. Ubisoft do have a really good core with The Crew but now it is up to task if they manages to keep the game updated on a regular basis and can keep the content flowing. If not this will be a very sad and short-lived attempt by Ubisoft to muscle in on the online scene.

OverWatch this.

So let´s finally talk about OverWatch. Blizzards first real step in to the first person market. If you have not done so yet take a few moments to check out the cinematic intro (and if you feel you have the time, the gameplay demo) linked here.

So now that we are all on the same page I am going to try to explain why I feel that the hype for this game might be justified. You see I used to be a FPS gamer once, back when I was younger and had way more time and a lot better eyesight. I started like many others on DOOM and Castle Wolfenstein back in the days when an entire game took up less space than your average image. It was fun because it was bloody and violent and so very much not Super Mario, it was also 3d… or well to call it 3d is being very kind. But it was something and it was awesome. Ten came Quake and later Unreal. My friends and I never got all that much in to the scene back then but we kicked some decent butt. We gravitated more towards Co-Op gaming like Rainbow Six and the early Battlefield games against the best of what bots could offer up back then. It was relaxing and we could banter and joke while we rained death and destruction down on digital people. Then the genre sort of got away from me. I tried to keep up with the BF games but failing eyesight and more realistic textures is not a good mix. It was not better on the more arcade side of things as the demands on players increased with weirder and faster gameplay. So I simply resigned from the FPS genre and went over to the slower paced MMO scene.

Now I do of course know that there are both first and third person shooters that are better suited for a scrub like myself. But here is where brand recognition comes in. Blizzard have time and time again produced solid and well supported games and especially with their new games such as Hearthstone and Heroes of the storm they work hard to make the barrier of entry as low as possible. Now I am banking on this with OverWatch too. Making it easy for an old goat such as myself to get back in to a genre of games I always liked but felt was beyond my scope.

Blizzard have said that the goal of OverWatch is to take the design philosophy from World of Warcraft where you bring the player, not the class. For Overwatch this will equal each play style having their place in the game. No matter if you are a tank or an assassin. For people like me you have the typical engineer that build turrets and generally have a slow paced game by the way of area denial and really burst-y but short-ranged damage. Characters like Bastion and Torbjörn(whom I already feel a certain kinship with seeing as he is a short and somewhat portly Gothenburger) fill a less jumpy-shooty niche and focus more on finding a good spot to defend.

So what is OverWatch in the game then? Well we do not really know all that much yet. It would seem that OverWatch was a G-I Joe/Avengers like peacekeeping force that for some reason fell from grace, either they ran out of favor or things to do. After all the world always cry out for heroes in times of dire need, but in times of peace and prosperity the same people with amazing power that once saved you as a unstoppable force will look more and more like a potential threat to the established peace. After all what if they decide to turn on society. It is a bit unclear why OverWatch members are once again going in to action in the game but I am sure that it will be explored further at a later date. The world of OverWatch is set in a version of our own, as I mentioned you can play a Swedish armsdesigner or why not an Egyptian soldier in a flying armor… Or a talking gorilla from the moon.. just for the heck of it.    

And this is a big part of what makes me interested in the new world, there is so much room to expand and explore. This world could hold so many new games, maybe a Dragon Age/Mass Effect type RPG based on the crisis that actually cause the formation of OverWatch to begin with… Of course we will see OverWatch heroes crossing over in to Heroes of the Storm… The opportunities are endless and if you like Blizzard for what they do rather than being a fan of a specific setting this is a very interesting time as we might see what Blizzard does with over 30 years of experience now that they have a blank canvas to work with.

So to sum this rambling mess up.

I look forward to OverWatch as a chance to get back in to the genre since the setting captures me in a way that most others have not, and if you read my blog you might see how a setting with in essence superheroes might be to my liking, but I also think the new world is a very interesting one to build on for a long time to come.