StarCraft 2

My history with Starcraft 1 was limited, I played most, if not all of the campaign, I played some multi-player with friends, but not really on battle.net. So my excitement for this title was really nostalgia based, and as such I came in with the same fears I had about fighting games in general, which is, that it was fun because playing games like this with friends is fun… I’ve played many of the action-RTS games that have come out of over the years, and they’re all fine an good, but I was really looking forward to a traditional RTS game like a Starcraft game commited to be true to its pedigree.

The story picks up 4 years after the events of brood wars, with the redneck Jim Raynor commanding his group of revolutionaries, the terribly named “Raynor’s Raiders”. Who are pitting their forces against the evil dictator Mensk, and the Dominion. The Tarren on Tarren (humans in the lore of Starcraft) action doesn’t last long before the Zerg and the Queen of Blades (formerly Kerrigan), show up, and not long after that before the protoss make an appearance and the love triangle from my youth continues, with a touch of internal struggle. We’re presented with Blizzard quality (that is to say very well done) cut scenes between every mission, and as a huge surprise to me to me, also between every mission you’re also given the opportunity to navigate a hub world of sorts where you can interact with the members of Raynor’s crew, upgrade your units/structures, purchase mercenaries to bolster your team in the missions (more on that later). It’s played out like a point and click adventure game, where you’re given some insight to the characters motivations as well as the situation that they find themselves in. I wasn’t expecting this at all, and while it’s not exactly brilliance, it did give the story some substance that is generally lacking in the RTS genre. That said however, I wasn’t totally sucked into the story, and I didn’t really get attached to the characters in any sense despite Blizzard’s strong efforts. There are some choices that effect the missions you end up going on and your crew structure, but to me they felt mostly insignificant. So again, an okay story in general, but excellent for the genre.

The single player campaign was crafted with extreme care. Every mission seems to introduce a different type of challenge, be it strategy, or environmentally based. For example, there was a mission where all of the minerals on the map are at a lower altitude, the trick is every few minutes those low areas are flooded with lava, so while gathering your minerals and applying pressure to your enemy you need to be aware of the timer. It’s really an exercise in managing your troops, making sure you get everything to high ground. I don’t want to go too spoiler on this since it’s most of the fun, suffice to say that this sort of variety persists through the twenty-some-odd missions. You do get some choice as to which mission you take when, there are often 2 available at any one time, and because of the rewards it has some impact on how the subsequent missions can be played out. Blizzard also opted to remove the bulk of the base building from most missions, by dropping you into a pretty established starting point. I can see how that would read as a positive to a lot of people, but that, plus the fact that new units are constantly being introduced it really takes a lot of the trial and error strategy out of the missions. Sadly you can tell what you have to do by the new units you have and the structures you’re provided. This is where the achievements add quite a bit of depth and replayability to the experience, even for a guy (namingly me) who doesn’t normally buy into the achievement thing. I think it was different in this case because reading the achievements makes you think “hmm… I wonder how I’d pull that off”, which introduces a whole bit of strategy and problem solving that I love. The down side of not being involved in the strategic elements of building your base, is that it really leaves you  ill-equipped to deal with the competition you’ll be facing on Battle.net. They added some RPG-like elements in the campaign by being able to  earn points by completing objectives that you can use to research zerg or protoss technology. Every five points you get to pick one of two new skills or units (choosing one locks out the other) that you can use through the campaign. Unfortunately you’ll be leaving these upgrades and units (and even some that aren’t upgrades) behind when you go online.

Thankfully, to help bridge the gap you also get 9 “challenges” that are intended to teach you some of the finer points. “Walling in” to fend off a rush, unit counters (which units are most effective against which), micromanaging your units, and using your hot keys and so on. They’re fairly effective at their purpose, but really to get ready to go online, you’ll need to spend some time in matches versus the AI getting used to establishing a base. To be completely frank, the matches against the AI is where the game has been most fun for me so far (despite the fact that my strategy, and ability fall apart at the 10-12 minute mark).

The best screenshot I could muster from my online experience so far

The Battle.net UI here is great, all the information you want is at your finger tips it’s super easy to group up with friends and getting into matches has been quick and easy. I haven’t spent a ton of time in online matches, but I did play a few, against players who apparently didn’t spend as much time battling with the AI or doing the challenges, so I haven’t really felt challenged in the practice league yet, but it’s still be fun and you do get a bit of a rush when you do get into an encounter even if you do feel like you have the stronger army, despite being able to identify flaws in my attack, and my execution. I don’t know if thats a credit to my research skills, or if the game has taught me more than I’m giving it credit for.

When it’s all said and done though, I’ve been playing this game with almost every minute of spare time I’ve had since it came out. Gamers looking for a traditional realtime strategy game, especially those looking to get online are going to find A LOT to love about this game, the quality of this title, the attention detail and the glossy shine of typical Blizzard polish is on full display. Some may be disappointed by the lack of innovation, but I think it provides enough newness to usher Starcraft into a new generation of player, and satisfy the seasoned veterans at the same time. If you’re looking for purely a one player experience, or for something ‘new’ I don’t think this game is the one for you, but if you’re the kind of person who can get into completing every objective in the game, this could keep you busy for a while.

Limbo

It would appear that I pulled the ‘chute a little too early the other day before I put my last post up, since I was literally 3 puzzles away from the end of the game when I quit, and fell just short of finishing it in one sitting. So my opinion won’t have changed that much from that post.

I’m a firm believer that if you have any interest in this game at all, that you should completely avoid any and all of the major media outlets… ESPECIALLY any with videos… it is a shame when any of the experience is spoiled by such things. For instance I caught an episode of “Reviews on the Run” yesterday and in the video clips they showed with their review they showed solutions for several of the puzzles. From my personal experience only 1 puzzle was spoiled before hand and I felt genuine disappoint when I got that point. That may be the first time something like that has happened to me, which should speak volumes about the level of enjoyment I had with every minute of this game, and the quality of the experience.

LIMBO is a platform puzzler, it contains no dialog, no color, and very very few characters. But that is not to say the game isn’t beautiful, and the story isn’t compelling, in fact that couldn’t be further from the truth. The game starts with a boy waking up in the middle of the woods, no preface, or pretext of any kind. Years of video game training has taught me the only thing to do in these sorts of side scrolling situations… go right young man… The media says somewhere I should have known that I was playing the part of a boy looking for his sister… I don’t know where they got that from… and i don’t care… I likened the experience to having woken up with amnesia, which helped me to related to whats going on a little better maybe.

There are 4 or 5 different types of areas that blend together seamlessly as you play, and although they were all fairly charming my favorite moments in the game were early on when the puzzles seemed to be more closely tied to the people and things found in the environment that were clearly carefully set up, but somehow felt naturally there. It made me feel like I just stumbled upon these things and that I’m coming up with my own solution even though I know thats not the case. As the game moves on I found the puzzles to look and feel more like puzzles when I approached them, and instead of using the things found in the environment to solve then, there are switches that do different things, blades, and gravity, to deal with. The puzzles are still fun and clever, but not nearly as satisfying as it was early on. Failing to solve these puzzles often ends in some gruesome greyscale murder scenes that quite literally made me cringe. That is a testament to how engrossed you get in the boy and his adventure. As a weathered gamer I’ve seen all sorts of video game murder… in all sorts of colors and context, very few if any get this sort of reaction out of me, it really was a joy to be a part of this world while I was playing.

The controls are awesome, the physics, and the weight of your character as he’s running, climbing, jumping and sliding, all feel consistent, and (for lack of a better word) ‘right’. Any time I didn’t clear a gap it felt like my fault for poor timing, not the controls.

A lot has been made of the game being short, I found it was a good length, considering the 1p in modern warfare 2 only took me 7 hours (I’m primarily a single player gamer), the fact that this game was in the 6 hour ball park, all of which was very enjoyable, and a fraction of the price. I think this game is an incredible value and completely deserves to be talked about as one of the best gaming experiences I’ve had this year. In fact I believe if the game had of carried on for another hour or 2  it would have began to feel a little stale, and the fact that their is no story based motivation for you to keep pressing on, I think it very well could have lost some people. Like most parts of this game, I found the time perfect for the genre. As it stands it left me wanting more, and that’s a good thing.

xbox 360 owners have no excuse in my eyes for not owning this game. It’s cheap, it’s fun, it’s immersive, it’s rewarding. Anyone who doesn’t have a 360 should be hassling PlayDead, begging them to get this to the platform most convenient. It’s not worth buying a console for, but this is something that no gamer should miss, and certainly not because of console exclusivity.

Mass Effect 2

You know a game is successful in what it’s trying to do, that it very quickly tells you, indirectly, that you should go back and play the previous title in the series. That’s what happened to me here… I tried to play Mass Effect over the holidays after picking it up during a steam sales. I played Mass Effect 2 for an hour or so the cinematic value of that introductory chapter was incredible, but it was the nature of the very dramatic intro made it clear that I should have a connection with these characters that I didn’t have. I mentioned a few posts back that I really liked Mass Effect, now that the dust has settled on that, and I have now played through Mass Effect 2, I’d say that the original was ok, but in retrospect, it’s a fraction of the sequel is.

It’s very easy to throw Mass Effect 2 into the traditional BioWare RPG bucket, but more than that it is a third-person “stop and pop” action game, with squad mechanics. It just so happens to be class based, and includes some character skill development based on experience points. It also contains an epic story that can be molded based on the decisions that is made by the player. In my opinion, this is the perfect blend action RPG. The controls on PC were tight, much better than in the original, and it felt like I could either use their pause/command functionality or play it as a straight up action game depending on the situation I was in. The execution here in my mind was flawless, I often found myself getting into some trouble, in those cases I’d pause the battle, scan the field to see whats going on, direct my team in such a way that would get me out of situation my running and gunning had got myself into. I played on the ‘normal’ difficulty, and I found that might have been a bit too easy. I didn’t die much through the course of the journey, and if I did it really was my fault for doing something stupid. I think it felt easier because the ally AI was competent for the most part. They didn’t often run out into the open into a swarm of enemies, sure it happened occasionally, but to the point of being a problem. The weapons and abilities all felt good to use, I played through as an adept, I REALLY enjoyed aiming my biotics so that they’d curve around enemy cover and the ability to control the battle field. I also started with some of the other classes and they all felt unique and powerful in their own way. I’m certain I will be playing through this again taking a different approach, with a different class, and maybe try to not get my crew killed this time…

BioWare did a great job of more or less hiding many of the ‘rpg’ elements from the player. You don’t have complicated decisions to make about ability points that need to be distributed, sure there is still some choice, but the options are simplified. You don’t need to spend points in charm or intimidate, though the functionality is still in the game and still used to open up dialog options. You also don’t have to manage your bag, and equipment, this is instead a loadout and upgrade system that applies to both weapons and armor. You purchase upgrades from stores or find them on missions, and you can develop them by using resources gathered by scanning planets, and dropping probes to collect them. It’s a simple system, after trying to get all the upgrades I did kind of wear out on the process, but by scanning the many planets in the many systems, you may also detect an anomaly which will give you a side quest you can do. It provides a little reward for exploring, and gives a little extra incentive when you’re farming materials for that expensive upgrade. But again, it all felt pretty optional to me.. and if I had my fill of scanning there was always something else I could do to take a break.

The story is one of, if not the best story in a game that I’ve played so far, I really got into it. I think thats because Shepard and the world that I’d created felt like my own. Unlike Mass Effect, which to me really made me feel like a small piece of this giant universe, Mass Effect 2 suppresses this by the rest of the universe refusing to acknowledge the threat leaving Shepard and crew to deal with the threat themselves. Although this is similar to ME1, the reason this feels smaller is because instead of trying to deal with the powers that be, finding evidence to support your claims etc to enlist their help, you are forced into a partnership with Cerberus, a terrorist organization (by reputation) with humanities best interest in mind (or so you’re told… I for one am not buying it). This relationship creates some interesting dialog moments and some difficult judgement calls along the way. I’ve got to say knowing that your decisions in this game will have consequences in the forthcoming sequel, and having seen those same sort of decisions carry forward from the original Mass Effect play their part here really makes you think carefully about the tough ones.

The bulk of the game is spent assembling your crew and doing loyalty missions (these will unlock an additional ability, and character outfit once completed, and I believe has some story repercussion as well), in doing these you really end up developing an emotional attachment to these people, as each provides some insight as to why Cerberus choose them to be on Shepard’s crew, and how they got into the position they’re in. There are some really interesting characters here and they were all a joy to get to know. But this sort of development and detail extends well beyond your immediate crew, the encounters you have on the various missions with people and situations are all incredibly fleshed out, and complete. You run into some genuinely creepy scenarios (not the least of which being the overlord DLC), all superbly written and all really fun to play.  The cinematics in this game are great, and similar to in Mass Effect, the soundtrack compliments each and every scene, it was very easy to get worked up and get on with your mission.

This is easily on my short list of games to play this year, even if you haven’t or don’t go back to play Mass Effect, though if you have the time I would strongly recommend it. It really makes you feel that the universe here is yours to mold.. It’s a truly amazing accomplishment for BioWare and I’m not at all surprised that it sounds like they’re trying to move the Dragon Age franchise in a similar direction (not that I agree with it). There isn’t much more I can say about this other than do yourself a favor and play it… and if you’ve only got a ps3, you should be hammering the bioware forums begging for a port because it’s that good…