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Feb 28th, 2014 at 07:53:51 - Path of Exile (PC) |
Ok, PoE update. I've got a bunch of skeptical friends. "Free to play...I don't know." "Like Diablo? Eeeeh." "You just do the same 3 acts over on harder difficulties?" Come on people! Free to play games can be excellent, remember the great things about Diablo, and isn't challenging yourself on harder difficulties fun and rewarding?!
I have been rushing through Cruel difficulty (the second one) with my Witch, though I recently seem to have hit a wall in the middle of Act 3, which sucks because I'm so close to completing Cruel. I did it solo up until I hit said wall. I had been levels above the recommended level for each area, but it finally evened out. I was getting massacred in the Chamber of Sins by a couple different types of enemies. Dying is v.bad in Cruel because you get a -5% experience penalty. In Merciless, it's -10%, ouch! So after losing like 20% of my experience bar in the Chamber of Sins, I joined up with some public parties who were running around near there. We made some headway on some quests, I leveled up once or twice (now level 50). It's funny, boss enemies are easier for me now, but some of the regular mobs are much deadlier. The same seems to be true in groups.
I'm not sure how I feel about group play so far. Some groups aim to complete quests. Others aim to farm xp. Others are for trading and loot runs. What I do know is that no one talks, except to ask for town portals to waypoints. Everyone mostly runs around in a mob spamming AoE spells and clicking on loot. I've only picked up a couple scrolls, haven't managed to get a single rare item before someone else snags it. But I think there is an xp boost in a party, and I was in this area called The Docks yesterday watching my experience bar fly. That was pretty sweet. But, playing in a group is kind of boring because there is such a mob of players and they're all just blasting everything. I just kind of ran behind them casting one or two spells per group of enemies, when I can make them out through all the visual effects. Regardless of how I feel about groups, it seems I have reached the part of the game where I have to grind xp (either solo or in parties) in order to continue much further. Lame.
Once I realized I was going to have to grind xp, farming the same zones over and over, I decided to play around with another class, the Scion. The Scion is cool because she starts smack in the middle of the passive skill tree, meaning she can more easily become all manner of hybrid character. I think I'm going to go for some sort of badass dual wielding, strong, attack speed kind of character. She starts out with this one skill that is a range attack where she throws her weapon(s), pretty cool. I also liked having access to my stash, where I've hoarded items from playing through with my Witch. So the Scion has a bunch of skill gems and rings and rares and stuff as she levels. BUT, after playing in Act 1 for maybe an hour, I fear...I fear I have little interest in continuing the Scion. Why? It's the same damn thing as the Witch (and every other class from what I can gather). You focus on AoE spells, run around and gather enemies, blast them down. Whether that's a fire pillar with the Witch or a Cleave with the Scion, it's the same thing. It pretty quickly felt really similar and I don't know why I would start another character to do the same thing I've been doing when I can keep progressing with the Witch. So, unless I end up finding friends to play with, the Scion will remain level 5.
Next plans? Grind it out with the Witch. My build is pretty sweet. I can summon like 9 zombies, 10 skeletons, and 2 spectres. I have a kickass AoE spell that calls down a fire pillar, which grows in size and strength as I hold down the cast button. I have augmentation gems on my fireball spell that increase burning damage and that splits it into like 5 projectiles, so it's a pretty badass AoE spell too. I've leveled up a couple curse gems, so enemies all take like 30% more crits and crit damage, get stunned more, are slower, take 20% more physical damage, all kinds of good stuff. I've scoured the passive skill grid and have one or two more areas with summoning abilities.
I would like to check out one of the races or some other community event just to see what it is like. I would also like to go PvP some. I forgot about that. The big thing though is there is a content expansion coming out in 5 days. I don't know if it adds a new act or what it does, but I don't want to put the game away until that. Actually, Grinding Gear Games has a pretty hefty new content schedule, with I think something big every 3 or 4 months. We'll see how this first one is, but based on the quality of the game, I'm excited for it.
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Feb 25th, 2014 at 10:45:56 - Resistance: Fall of Man (PS3) |
Got my PS3 back from the shop. I can't say it was free anymore since I had to drop some cash for a new disc drive. Now I can say I got it highly discounted, still a satisfied customer. So back on the wagon of playing all the PS3 exclusives and PS3 games that were region locked for my Xbox. Resistance was a flagship title for the console's launch in 2006. It's crazy to think I'm playing "new" games from 8 years ago. That last console generation sure did last a while. It was a pretty good shooter, nowhere near in league with Gears of War though, as far as flagship FPS titles went. The main difference is that Resistance isn't a cover shooter. It's more Call of Duty-esque.
I liked that the story was told as an account, and also that it wasn't an American-centric game. Granted, the Americans were the saviors sort of, but it mostly had to do with England. Just a nice change. This woman, head of a military caravan that encountered trouble, is the story's narrator. The caravan was taking an alien creature to drop it off to the Americans, who were supposed to use it to help with a last ditch effort in saving England and repelling this invading alien force, called the Chimera. Caravan got ambushed, and basically you go secure the caravan, traverse the Chimeran tunnel network, and eventually blow their invasion to hell. The story was cool because it told all these little stories about moments of heroism that you, American solder I-already-forgot-his-name, participated in that allowed for eventual victory. There wasn't much emphasis on character building, just telling this overarching story of the Chimeran invasion and England's fight to drive them back out. It's pretty obvious that this is set up to have more stories in sequels, of which there are plenty. At some point I'm sure I'll find out more about my character (he gets infected but has titular "resistance" to the alien virus that turns everyone else into aliens), and I'll probably have to drive the Chimera out of the rest of Europe, perhaps fight off an invasion of America. Yay.
So, first thing I noticed about the game is that it's hard. I died in the tutorial like 10 times and almost turned the difficulty down to easy. I'm glad I didn't though because it leveled off for the most part. The reason the tutorial was hard was because the main character hadn't been infected yet, and so his life didn't regenerate at all. You get damaged, you stay damaged. Your health is in 4 25% bars. Once you get infected, you can regenerate the bar that's part empty, filling that quarter. So like if your health is at 70%, it will regenerate up to 75%. If it's at 76% it will regenerate up to 100%, if it's at 5% it will regenerate up to 25%...It is a serious tactic to try not to get damaged below 75%, 50% or 25% so that you can regenerate more health. There are health packs scattered around. Other parts are really frikin hard too, like the first time you have to fight one of those big spider aliens that shoots explosive egg things at you (which is after a giant firefight and having to take down two stalkers!) and the part where you have to fight like 10 of those slender man things. Holy crap, I did those parts like 20 times. There's also an auto-checkpoint system, and I frequently had to re-do sections. Say within one checkpoint, there are 4 battle parts. Made it through 1, through 2, through 3, died on 4. Got to restart from the checkpoint at part 1. Although it was frustrating sometimes, as challenges tend to be, I enjoyed the difficulty. It forced me to learn which guns were good against which enemies, to be cautious, to handle multiple enemies of different types simultaneously, and so on. Definitely not an easy game, but quite rewarding to beat the hard parts.
Alien enemies weren't anything special until later on when more interesting types emerge like the stalkers and the aforementioned egg-shooter spiders. But most of the time you'll just be fighting hybrids, your basic grunt with machine guns, or some slightly different version of them. The challenge becomes conserving life and staying alive and using guns smartly. Guns also were pretty dull until later on, and even then, not too exiting. Basic machine guns, shotguns, sniper rifle..those are what you have through half the game. You regularly find a new one at predetermined spots. Oh, and ammo is strewn around EVERYWHERE, and often specific ammo in a spot will alert you to what gun you should probably think about using for whatever is coming up. Later, you get some kind of explosive globule-throwing gun that was handy against big hard enemies and some sort of ricocheting machine gun. The most interesting gun was probably this energy rifle which could shoot through objects. For each object it passes through, it becomes stronger. One type of enemy has this gun too, and seeing them was usually a red flag to run away, then come back and be really careful. When you run away, they still shoot at you, and you see this energy forming on walls and things, then "pew!" as it continues to the next surface, stays there a moment, then "pew!" through it to the next surface. Scary.
One cool thing about the weapons is they all had alt fire modes. That object penetrating gun had one where you create a shield that nothing can pass through (except object penetrating ammo), so that was great for when lots of enemies rushed at you down a hallway. Put up the barrier and blast them. The human machine gun has a grenade launcher. The alien machine gun has a homing beacon you can tag an enemy with and your shots will fly around obstacles to hit it. The sniper rifle can slow down time for easy headshots (super handy in the last levels). There were 3 types of grenades, your basic, these that shoot a bunch of spikes everywhere, and some others that incinerate an area. The latter kind was especially dangerous for me even. Toss it and run or get burned up too! Oh, and the Chimera would place these mine traps around sometimes, which were pretty cool. If you get near, one of those spiky grenades would pop up, or a laser robot, or this energy expulsion thing, and you have to shoot them or hide or get hit or, with the energy expulsion ones, either jump or duck to avoid the energy, depending on what height the thing rises to. Pretty neat.
Yeah, that's about it. Interesting premise, fun gameplay, nothing too amazing. Hopefully 2 and or 3 will take it to the next level and expand more on the plot.
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Feb 20th, 2014 at 18:43:55 - MASQ (Web) |
Interesting "choose your own adventure" type game. I found out about this from PC Gamer's Top 100 Games of All Time list from some issue like 6 months ago that I just got around to reading. Apparently it's been around since 2002 and the purpose is to tell a compelling narrative in a nontraditional gaming format. So it's like a comic book style game that just plays out in scenes. You make dialogue decisions that advance the plot. The plot will also advance on its own. If you don't select an option, other characters will continue acting.
Pretty much every dialogue choice affects story events. I played through 5 times (it's really quick) and made it to the "end" the last time. I wound up in jail a couple times, a successful fashion designer one time, I may have died once...There's a really complex narrative behind what you see. Each time I played through, I learned different things about relationships among characters, like who Nikki was, what my wife was up to late at night, why Carlos was killed, how to get money from the bank and from an investor...I'm sure there are a hundred other scenes I didn't see yet. It's pretty cool.
Obviously, since 2002 this kind of branching storyline has been done in The Witcher series and a bunch of Bioware games and other more notable stuff. This game is still really interesting and surprisingly engaging even though it's (mostly) black and white, just comic book pictures, and has no sound. Worth playing through a couple times if you're interested in a unique approach to storytelling style in games. And it's so short, you can go through it a few times in an hour.
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Feb 19th, 2014 at 11:42:31 - Path of Exile (PC) |
Ok, just finished Path of Exile on normal difficulty with my witch. I played solo the entire game up until the last boss. I didn't have a waypoint to the area, so I had to make sure I kept town portals open so when I died I could teleport back. Well, one time I forgot to make a town portal and died and I didn't have a waypoint but for like 3 areas away. That's bad. Let me explain waypoints and area maps real quick.
Waypoints are stones that you activate. Once you activate the waypoint in an area, you can insta-travel to waypoints you've activated in other areas. Don't have a waypoint for an area? Then you have to run there. Why are waypoints good besides traveling convenience? Because the areas RESET after you've been out of them for 8-15 minutes. If you haven't been in an area for 15 minutes, you can be sure all the monsters are back, the map is cleared and reset. Any exits you may have found will be randomized again. You essentially have to re-do the area.
Back to my story. Since I died without creating a town portal (which I had to do because I hadn't found the waypoint), then I had to begin again from the nearest waypoint I had, which was like 3 areas away, and was actually where I had started this final session in the first place. Since it had been over an hour since I'd been there, that area was reset. Since I would have had to fight my way through it all over again, then for sure by the time I found the next area, that area would be reset too. Since I hadn't been there for an hour, by the time I fought my way through it, the following area would be reset as well. Continue the chain of reset areas and what you have is me playing what I just played all over again, and finally getting back to the last boss to find all my progress on him erased and reset too. Lame. It is SCARY to have areas reset! Also that means if you take a town portal to town to clear your inventory or return quests or whatever, you have like 8 minutes to do your business and get back or the area you were in might completely reset. When I play again, I will not be leaving (important) areas without scouring them for the waypoints because I got stuck with reset areas more than a few times while playing.
So, I decided not to trek all the way back to the last boss. It's a multiplayer game too, so maybe there was a party forming to kill Dominus, the last boss. I found the party tab and sure enough, there were a couple going. I joined up and took someone's town portal to the boss. I died immediately. Enemies get...way...harder as more people join! Then everyone else died, and after a while we tried again. I died again, but just sat there dead this time and watched everyone else whittle down the boss's health. Victory! Achievements! Quest complete! Since I was dead I couldn't loot anything, but whatever, Normal difficulty completed.
Here's an interesting thing. Path of Exile is largely multiplayer. After the game finished, I looked at my achievements, since I got like 6 this last session. One of the achievements was for joining a public group, like I did to kill Dominus. It's an easy achievement. Just click "join" on a party. Certainly that helped me out in the end, and I imagine that soloing becomes really difficult in the next difficulty level. Anyway, what percentage of players have the achievement for joining a public group? 2.1%! Only 2.1% of all players have ever joined a public group. That seems extremely low. Granted, many others may have joined private groups. But then again, the % of people who have completed the game once on normal is only 13% right now, which also seems pretty low. I guess what I interpret this as is...maybe...most people who finish the game do it solo since only 1/6 or so have grouped (assuming all the people who have grouped have finished). Then in Cruel difficulty (the next harder one), only 5.4% of players have finished it, so (assuming again that everyone who grouped has gone this far), then only half those players did it solo, versus 5/6 in Normal mode. Grouping becomes very effective, perhaps for getting loot or staying alive, or it's more fun, I have no idea. In Merciless difficulty (the hardest) 2.3% of players have finished, so practically everyone must group to complete it.
I hope to lure some friends into this game. I want to give it another play through with a new class, probably the Scion, who you can rescue at the end of Act III and who then becomes a playable character class that begins smack in the middle of the skill grid. I'm thinking some sort of mostly strength/some dexterity character, basically the opposite as the Witch. I'd also like to try and go through Cruel solo with my Witch and just see what that difficulty is like and play with some of the items and equipment and generally try to figure the game out some more. There's a LOT of replayability here. I want to play more with other people and learn a bit about the economy. I want to plan out a build with the Scion. I want to learn more about item statistics and elemental attributes and resistances and what all these terms mean and how they are calculated.
One more thing -- I mentioned previously that the game wasn't that interesting to look at. Well, I take my words back. While some areas really are bland, others are richly detailed and beautiful, especially later in the game. Piety's labs are especially amazing (and disgusting!) with blood rivers and corpses and torture victims strung up all over the place on a Holocaust scale. I stand by my comment that the map is ugly though, although I have learned to see through its messiness and utilize it better.
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