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Jun 3rd, 2016 at 15:43:50 - Outland (PC) |
I’ve confirmed there is FPS drop regardless of whether I use Big Picture mode. Can’t imagine it’s my laptop. It’s not too annoying, but it’s there. It smooths out so nicely when there are fewer enemies on screen and when it’s zoomed in to a smaller view of the area. That’s my only problem with the game. Otherwise I thought it was wonderful.
I’ve realized that the combat is deeper than it initially seemed. Early on, I was just hacking and slashing away, but you can actually do things like an uppercut sword swing and launch your foes into the air, stun them, hit them from above and below on ledges, launch bombs at them, make enemies hit one another, and use a whole barrage of special abilities in different situations. There is a really cool beam blast that annihilates anything in a line. There is another cool one that absorbs all energy balls (the red and blue bullets flying everywhere) and then sends a 360-degree shockwave out from your character that will similarly annihilate enemies. It’s a good way to clear a path through dense bullets and enemies.
The difficulty ramps up toward the end, which is great because there is so much room for complexity here. There are spots where the bullet patterns take a minute of observation to discern. Add enemies walking through those areas, and you’ve got a conundrum on your hands! How do you avoid the bullets and avoid/attack enemies at the same time? Answer: Rapid and precise color switching. Or lure the enemies out of the bullet area if possible.
About halfway through the game, the machines that shoot bullets start alternating sometimes shooting different colors. In the last of the game’s worlds (heaven or something), the enemies start changing colors too. It is a bit mind-bending to keep track of what color bullets are flying where and what color enemies are, keeping track of all of those things changing colors, keeping track of YOUR color, and trying to platform your way around at the same time. It feels awesome every time you get through an area.
All this craziness culminates in the final insane boss battle. It took me nearly 10 tries to get it and probably 45 minutes of repeating, getting a little farther, a little farther, stuck on one part for a while, a little farther, and finally defeating the boss. Here’s a video of someone doing a nice job of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTSNvPwiMEs. Somehow they can destroy the dragon heads in two hits, while it took me three. There were no weapon upgrades that I know of, so I dunno how the player was doing that. Also, I didn’t think to use special powers against it until the very end when I had 1 health left and thought I was going to die. I was just riding around on the outer circle and it popped in my head: “Oh! I bet I can just use the beam and shoot the sisters from here!” Bam, win.
Really great game, highly recommended if you like 2d platformers!
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Jun 2nd, 2016 at 20:24:57 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC) |
Finished up Witcher 3 tonight. "Wow" is all I'm tempted to say.
This is one of my favorite games of all time. I'll just continue where I left off in the last entry...
The Skellige isles were cool, but not quite Velen pt. 2. Probably on par with Novigrad. The Skellige story is one of warring clans. Skellige’s king has just died and all the clan leaders vote on a successor, drawn from a pool of anyone who steps forth. It’s mostly the jarls’ sons, and one of their daughters (gogo gender representation issues!). Some of them embark on quests to prove their valor/bravery/honor and Geralt gets the opportunity to help some of them. Cerys, the one woman, is trying to cure one of the jarls who went mad after the death of his brother. Together, Geralt and Cerys discover that a hym has attached itself to the man. Hyms are spirit monsters that haunt people who do some evil, and hyms basically feed on the madness they cause the person. (Was the jarl's brother's death really an accident??) Then you help another hopeful king slay a notorious ice giant who has taken over one of the Skelligan islands, making it inhospitable. So, I enjoyed helping out the claimants to the throne, and there is a lot of exciting politics going on in Skellige! It’s all resolved climactically after a banquet goes horribly awry. There are traitors and plots and all that good stuff. The Witcher loves to throw these twists at you when you think a storyline is wrapping up. Love it.
Since Skellige is a bunch of islands, the game introduces boats and harbors (fast travel for boats). Sailing around the islands was fun, and there are probably 75 sunken treasures, smuggler’s caches, and stuff like that to find in the middle of the ocean. After I’d done every quest (yes, EVERY quest in the game that I could find!) I determined to sail around Skellige and identify all the "?" icons and get all the treasure. Well, after like 30 minutes I’d barely made progress and realized that 9/10 of those icons was just a smuggler’s cache, which is like some crafting supplies, money, some crappy items, nothing to write home about. So I figured I didn’t need to do that and got on with the game.
Did I mention I completed EVERY quest I could find? I’m feeling like quite the completionist here and it’s exciting. I can’t believe a game kept my interest long enough for me to want to do everything and explore everywhere. There were some excellent, surprising, funny, heartfelt quests. One in particular I won't ever forget. CD Projekt Red must have been discussing DRM in the office and wrote a whole quest criticizing it. You go to an island, where the villagers ask you to find out what's up with this mysterious tower that appeared out of nowhere and is causing bad weather. You go to the tower and its Defense Repelling Machine* (*I forget the actual name, but its acronym is DRM!) explains that you are not the tower's owner and so you must be destroyed. Tower defenses activate, you kill some golems and find a mage there who had "bought the tower at auction for a great price." So he wasn't the original owner and the tower tried to kill him, haha. Then you have to find the Gavin's Omni Grimoire* (*not the actual name, but its acronym is GOG [Good Old Games, platform selling DRM-free games]) and give it to the tower's second-hand owner to shut down the DRM. Hilarious, and the idea works so well in fantasy context.
In addition to all the quests, I found all the crafting recipes for witcher gear and (gasp!) actually crafted things. I hardly ever craft things in games if I don’t have to. I played nearly this whole game without using potions, crafting anything, or using decoctions. Which leads me to ask, why is that stuff in the game? Why do open-world RPGs include all these systems? Do most people use them? Do most people ignore them? Do most people dabble? I have no idea, but I’m curious. I imagine it's one of those things that some people really like that's there if players want it, but can be ignored if players don't want it. Simple-to-learn, hard-to-master? As much or as little depth as you like? I usually ignore/dabble a little, but rarely bother with unnecessary crafting. That usually takes time, costs you effort and money to find ingredients, have to visit craftspeople, learn more menus, and usually you find weapons and armor that’s good enough anyway. One instance when I will buy in to crafting and potion-making and such is when the game is difficult and those things really give me an edge. If the edge isn’t large enough, I calculate that it’s not worth my investment. Very pragmatic.
It sucks though because all the crafting systems and the ability to loot crates, boxes, and bags nearly everywhere, means that a neophyte Witcher player likely will spend much time collecting garbage around the world. There are hundreds of items to pick up. I had two friends on two different occasions have the same conversation with me, which is why I've been thinking about the necessity of these systems:
Friends: What are you playing these days?
Me: Witcher 3. It's awesome.
Friends: Oh, I couldn't get into that.
Me: Why not?
Friends: It's too complicated! There are a lot of menus and too many things to pick up.
Me: Oh, you don't have to loot everything or pick up herbs.
Friends: Really? Why is all that stuff there then?
Me: Good question...
I picked up all the things early on too, then after a while realized I wasn't ever using any of it and stopped for the most part. But I did start crafting some things later on. The stuff I crafted in the Witcher was witcher armor and swords when I had completed quests for the two master craftsmen in the game who can create the best gear. I figured I found the recipes and did the quests, so I should check out what I can get. Good thing too, it’s sweet gear. I also started using cat potions that let you see in the dark. I’d been just using this lamp that lets you see ghosts (and illuminates the room a bit), which worked fine, but you can’t run or jump while holding it. Made wandering dark caves more realistic and scary. Right near the end of the game, before the final quest, I upgraded all my witcher gear that I was wearing to "mastercrafted" ones that were level 34, and didn't realize that I was only level 33. I realized it when I exited the crafting menus and Geralt was in his underwear. Took me a second to realize that I'd rendered all my gear unusable for the time being. So I actually did some of the final quest line in underwear, which was amusing.
Another "useless" diversion in the Witcher 3 is gwent, a full-fledged collectible card game. I won't go into detail, but I spent a lot of time playing and must have collected almost all of the cards. You can play most of the innkeeps and shop owners, as well as a lot of special games against more difficult opponents, and a tournament (which I lost in the second round :-/). Looking forward to playing more gwent in the DLCs with new cards!
Anyway, I've written enough I think! Other writers should take note of character development in the Witcher and copy it. Gerald and Triss play off one another so well, as do Geralt and Yennifer and Geralt and Ciri. The latter are so cute, and it would be a cynical player who wasn't overjoyed to have a snowball fight with Ciri to cheer her up. Triss and Yennifer have a great interaction with Geralt at the end as well that cleared up some issues I had with how the romances were playing out. Great writing.
This game is amazing. Go play it. I will be eagerly awaiting a price drop in DLC, both of which are supposed to be excellent.
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May 24th, 2016 at 12:52:27 - The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (PC) |
I wrote my last entry when I left Velen for Novigrad, so I'll write this one a couple hours after leaving Novigrad for Skellige.
I am very glad to be out of Novigrad. Several things contributed to it starting to feel tedious:
(1) Novigrad is a big city. Coming from the wide open space of Velen, Novigrad feels tiny and constrained, and I'm constantly running back and forth through alleyways and trying to find people in corners of buildings and whatnot. Lots of running through the city trying to find what I'm trying to find and running into locked doors, unscaleable walls, etc.
One thing I realized is really nice though is that the minimap tells you whether an objective is above or below you. All games with minimaps and vertical areas should tell you this information!
(2) Quest levels have gotten weird. Since I have done every quest I can, I am over-leveled for the main stuff. They are gray and reward only 1 or 2 experience points sometimes, which is sort of annoying. Although I do enjoy the little narratives, it reduces the pleasure when I get nothing else from them. This is confounded by the monotony of running around Novigrad. But at the same time, I ended up leaving Novigrad with a few quests that were 10 levels above me. This is better now that I'm in Skellige though. Quests and enemies got a bump in level, so I'm not so much stronger and they are back to being challenging.
(3) Partly as an outcome of out-leveling quests, some of them just seem to drag on and on. For example, I thought I was wrapping up in Novigrad, when something happens to Priscilla (won't spoil it). I end up doing this long secondary quest when I was ready for Novigrad to wrap up. I mean, it was still cool, don't get me wrong, but I was over-leveled and tired of Novigrad, so it was like "Come onnnnn, let's gooooo."
One thing that was great about Novigrad, like Velen before it, was the overarching story of the place. In Velen it was the Bloody Baron and the politics of Nilfgaard and Redania. In Novigrad, it is the Eternal Fire's persecution of non-humans. Right when you enter Novigrad, you see two people being burned at the stake, and it's established that the Eternal Fire is a fundamentalist religion that condemns magic-users, elves, dwarves, witchers, witches, mages, dopplers, monsters, etc., etc., anyone who isn't a normal human.
During your time in Novigrad, the Eternal Fire gains greater control of the city. They shut down the university at Oxenfurt, they set up checkpoints requiring people wanting to leave the city to have a pass certifying that they aren't magic-users, they are assassinating people, and more.
Triss is trying to get mages out of Novigrad and save them before the Eternal Fire gets them. One great secondary quest was to help her save an alchemist. You have to go to his family's estate and stealthily get him on a ship out of Novigrad before he's murdered. The conclusion to the Triss/Eternal Fire/Novigrad narrative was so excellent and emotional that I almost shed a tear!
Novigrad also had like a cast reunion from the previous games. Almost every major character I could remember makes an appearance (Dandelion, Roche, Zoltan, Triss, etc.) and I think there's a lot of fan service built in to the end of the Novigrad story. For example, you're trying to find Dandelion because he can help you find Ciri, but to find Dandelion, you've got to convince a doppler who saw him last to come out of hiding, so you put on a play with an acting troupe. This was so much FUN. You sort of help Priscilla write it, then you get cast in it and memorize some lines, and perform a 5-act play that is funny and serves its purpose in luring the doppler. And Dandelion gets a LOVE STORY. Whoa. There was a lot packed into that city!
So from Novigrad to Skellige. Now that I'm into Skellige, my enthusiasm is renewed. Skellige is massive like Velen was; no more cities! Skellige is made up of a lot of islands with a lot of clans vying for power. By purchasing maps off merchants, you unlock the fast travel signs for them, which is cool because that means you don't have to physically sail a boat to them all. Easy!
When I arrived in Skellige, I found a funeral for the King happening in the main city. Skellige's clans are all there and they're going to vote on a new King. It's interesting because although Skellige is meant to be very Norse-esque, they have many democratic aspects to their culture. Men and women are said to be equal, however this is ideal and not real. For example, when a king dies, his wife is expected to immolate herself alongside him. And there is a female character contending for the crown, and it's made clear that others don't think she can do it, though her main goal is to prove herself as good as the men. Doesn't really seem so equal to me! Maybe Skellige will deal more with gender issues, whereas Novigrad dealt a lot with race issues.
Anyway, I'm just a little bit into Skellige. I've got a ton to explore and can't wait to get into the Skellige story, which seems to be about succession to the throne, conflict with Nilfgaard, and threats to local culture. Cool. Also, at some point I will write about Gwent, the full-fledged card game in the Witcher.
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May 24th, 2016 at 12:12:46 - Outland (PC) |
Been looking forward to this 2d platformer (+ bullet hell now that I'm playing it) for a long time and got a chance to start playing yesterday after retiring Jet Set Radio. Long story short, this light/dark mechanic is amazing. Here's the gist of how it works:
There is the light (blue) and the dark (red). You get the power to switch between light and dark with a button press. The environment and enemies can also be either light or dark, and can even switch between them too. You are not harmed by the environment when you are the same color as it. You are not harmed by non-physical enemy attacks when you are the same color. You are always harmed by enemy physical attacks no matter the colors. You can only harm enemies of the opposite color.
Your main environmental obstacles are various devices that shoot red and blue bullets. They are deadly, but the patterns are beautiful. Did I mention how stylish Outland is? It's a wonder to look at. So you'll have these bullets flying all over the screen, enemies moving about, and your task is to get through it all. Each screen is like a platforming puzzle. You observe the colors, the bullets' trajectories, the enemies' colors and movement, the platforms you have to jump on, etc. and plan it out in your head. Try it out, and if you die, do it again with modifications, or more carefully. It's so much fun to play.
I've encountered one boss so far, who was pretty easy, and I think I'm near a second. The boss was a golem. This was before I could switch between red and blue (I was only blue). He sent a red spark along the ground that I had to jump over. When he did that'd, it would render him vulnerable for a moment. Jump up on him and attack, then jump off before the spark came back and hit you. Then he'd pound the ground and knock these armadillo-like enemies out of a tree. Take care of them and get health and whatever you need. Then he'd rain down blue and red bullets, which you just had to avoid the red ones until it was over. Repeat. It took me two or three tries, and I actually got an achievement when I beat it because I didn't take any damage. Go me.
Anyway, really really really looking forward to playing more! I still have abilities to unlock (teleportation, some beam weapon, ??) and I can't wait for the difficulty to ramp up some more. I've already died plenty, but this is the kind of game that I enjoy mastering controls. Oh yeah, speaking of, the precision feels a bit sluggish, but that may be because I was playing on the TV. Sometimes that happens. I turned down the graphics level which helped a bit, but I will try it on my laptop sometime.
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