War in the North – Happily Beating Down Orcs – For the Love of Co-op Gaming (Part 1)

I have a great many weaknesses, but one of the more prominent lies in the area of cooperative gaming.

Oh, how I miss the blocky good times.

I remember, back in the day, that occasionally Blades of Steel (hockey) on the 8-bit NES, a glitch would occur and somehow you and your friend could both control players on the same team.  It was chaos as the controls mirrored each other so the defence guy had to be careful not to interfere once he passed the puck out his area of responsibility.  It was often traumatically funny, with our pixelated little hockey avatars swooping around seemly at random, the game confused by two sets of input, while the computer went in and scored on us.  Oh the angst and thrills of victory (especially over the pink tinged Montreal Canadians).   In the same vein, Contra, another 8-bit classic we played to death as it was one of the first legitimate two player co-op games on the home console market.  Life was good, but things were poised to become great back in the summer of 1991.

Nineteen years ago,  Electronic Arts (back when EA was just another good budding developer) released NHL Hockey.  My best friend and I had been waiting for this game to be released for the Sega Megadrive/Genesis for about a year.  I can still remember coming home from school and seeing the large cardboard box wedged in the mailbox.   My pulse still quickens at the memory.

 

Co-Op + Playoffs = Awesome!

You see, EA Hockey was not available in Canada(!) when it was first released, I sent away for it, buying directly from EA via snail mail.  We got our copy an entire delicious month before the rest of Canada had retail access to the game.  EA Hockey was innovative for its time, the first game featuring a top down vertical play action, but more importantly, you could choose to both play on the same team.

Sweet Mother of Jebus, but was it fun!  The Edmonton Oilers, back in the 1990 still featured amazing talent and my best friend and I relished making the one timer players, and those oh so sweet cross ice passes from Messier to Kurri, not to mention those wacky breakaways with the speedy Petr Klima.  EA did not get the license from the NHLPA so the avatars only had numbers, but that was fine, back then we knew all the numbers for the Oilers.

Oh, Mega Drive, with the crappy homemade s-video to RCA converter.

I’m sure, if I found my school records, I could track the dip in my academics when that first game was released.  I’d do it again though, in a heart-beat as those were some great times for me on the video game front.  Yes gentle reader we’re getting to War in the North, but know that the road getting from there to here passed through many a classic co-op title – Streets of Rage 1,2 (especially 2), 3, Double Dragon (sega master system), Contra, of course the EA NHL and NFL games, Altered Beast, GOLDEN AXE 1,2 (Oh how I miss you sweet barbarian princess),oh don’t forget NBA Jam (boomshakalaka!!).

After about 2003ish, gaming companies finally got the idea that people like playing on the same team together and titles began to pour out – Soldier of Fortune 1,2, Serious Sam, Team Fortress, SW Battle Front, Counter-Strike, Diablo 2, and of course the current pinnacle of co-op shooter gaming Left for Dead 1 and 2.  (I realize this is far from comprehensive list, add your favs in the comments).  The number games now that feature co-op gaming are simply too numerous to list here,  however it is nice to have your particular gaming addictions properly fed.

Having played the Lord of the Rings games for the original xbox (and being a Tolkien fan, pre-movies) the idea of entering realms from the fantasy series has always been particular appealing.  As a side note, I always wonder why developers try and take a game based around a successful and wildly popular co-op mechanic and make it into a turd-a-rific single player experience; yes I’m looking at you Golden Axe: Beast Rider.

Back to the LoTR though, on the PC-gaming front not much has been done (well) with regards to cooperative play until now.  The Lord of the Rings: The War in the North fills out the cooperative role nicely so far (I’ve only played 2 of the 8 chapter of the game).  Like its Mega-Drive predecessor LotR:WiN is based around the singular concept of finding neat new ways to put the pointy end of your sword into nearest Orc baddie.  I was leery of purchasing the game reviews were mixed at best.  What won me over was the price drop from $50down to $20 dollars.  Twenty dollars is the sweet spot for purchasing most computer games, as they tend to disappear from shelves and not return until a “new and improved” gold edition (for more $$) is released later in the year.  Anyhow, for forty dollars, even lacklustre hack and slash is fairly good deal.

Economics aside, I did feel a certain amount of trepidation due because this was one of those “gut-purchases” more than my usual “brain-purchases”.  Hmm…how does it look?

Yah, okay…I’m sold.  It is as fun as it looks (so far).   Seeing that this is already some eight hundred words, I’ll continue this nostalgia/anecdata/game review in another post when I have more of the game under my belt.

 

I hate Elevators…Francis from L4Dead2

 

My friends and I have been hitting the Left 4 Dead pretty hard as of late.  Lo and behold, youtube can further feed the fires.  This clip won’t make much sense to those who have not played L4Dead, but suffice to say, Francis is one of my favourite characters in the game.

The Old Republic – Beta Evaluation Part 2 – Character Creation

    The Old Republic (TOR) does many things right when it comes to structuring the MMORPG experience, that being said, character creation is an area sadly neglected as choice is limited and inconsequential other than for strictly aesthetic purposes.  They are as follows: Chiss, Cyborg, Human, Miraluka, Mirialan, Rattataki, Sith Pure Blood, Twi’lek, Zabrak.

I bet you’re thinking, “Wow, that is lot of choices Arb.  What could you possibly be talking about?”.  Well as mentioned, the choices are largely ‘just for looks’ as all species share the same attributes.  The lithe Twi’lek is just as dexterous as the plodding Cyborg and has the same amount of endurance as the battle hardened Sith Pure blood.

At the time of the close of the beta, each character class was really nothing more than a paper doll to hang your belongings on. This is not out of the ordinary for MMO’s as you do need to have a reason to adventure; getting all the shiny baubles to put on your character is important after all.  A little more differentiation would have been nice though during the character creation process.

Bioware did give this area a slight nod as they gave each race a ‘social racial ability‘.  However, these abilities are inconsequential to actually game play and could actually have a negative effect in the hands of the stupid.  For instance the human racial ability is called rally – you press it and everyone around you breaks into cheers and jumps up and down.  The serious role players are not happy as someone can make your character do things, albeit harmless things, with no input.  The ‘serious’ role players have been quite vocal already on the testing forums about these racial abilities.   My question is if you are going to make racial abilities superficial, why bother with them in the first place?

Rather than have ephemeral differences between classes, why not give actual bonus that matter to the base stats during character creation?  It would make your choices matter more and enhance your connection with your paper doll.   As TOR seems to have followed WOW in so many areas why not in this aspect in character creation with having meaningful racial bonuses?

Having a unique dance for being a Twi’lek is nice and all, but when the blaster bolts start whizzing about, I’d prefer to be a little more nimble because its hard to bust a svelte dance move while taking a dirt-nap.

The Old Republic – Beta Evaluation

   I came in about midstream as far as the overall beta test for TOR was concerned.  The game itself has come a long way since October in terms of graphical polish and some of the mechanics of the game.  The TOR beta recently closed and I would like to say it left a Star Wars shaped hole in my gaming heart, but alas, it did not.  The game was good, but not great.

The much vaunted voice acting was immersive to a certain extent, but because of practical limitations, most of the conversation choices during the voice acted cut scenes were of little consequence to your character or the story arc you happened to be following.  So, playing as a Jedi Knight, I could sass talk my Master, follow my emotions and generally be a jerk during my time on the training planet and I would still get to the end of the content with roughly the same character stats/condition as if I had been the super supreme serene jedi mistress that was truly at one with the force.   Actions with out consequences tend to make the choices offered superficial and therefore unimportant and ultimately skipped over, just like the crusty blocks of quest text prevalent in other MMO’s.

The style of other MMO’s is what I was hoping to avoid in playing TOR.  Therein lies the crux of Bioware’s problem, they need to be different… but not TOO different as to make people shy away from the game.  This leaves TOR looking a lot like WOW, only with a different IP and setting.  Do we really need more of the World of Warcraft style of interaction?  Apparently the answer is a resounding yes.  The problems of TOR begin with the interface…

The GUI of TOR at the time of the beta was not customizable at all.  You could have a total of four visible bars, two along the bottom and one on the left and one the right.  Of course there was the alt-shift hot keyed ones, but those are a pain in the arse, not to mention virtually unreachable while you desperately attempt to stun that damn Sith Juggernaut who is cutting you a new breathing aperture with his lightsaber.  The other problem is, too many abilities and buttons to press while in the heat of combat.  Playing a melee character was pretty much out of the question for me as circle strafing while having to keep someone in range of your glowstick-o-doom and having the umpteen number of hot-keys necessary to beat them down was a little to steep a curve.  Playing  a ranged character was significantly easier, and could easily do the damage that any of the melee characters could do with less button stress.

Stress was common in PVP as all levels where thrown together for most matches, and the extra abilities the higher levels get did make the difference in one on one fights.  However, with a little teamwork and communication the warzones, even for low level characters was fun and enjoyable.  I’ll cover the PVP I did in another post.  :>

This is probably enough for my first post on my TOR beta impressions, I’ll cover character generation and PVP in future posts.

Open Letter to Bioware – The Old Republic

An Open Letter to BioWare on The Old Republic MMO

As a single consumer, I have very little impact as to what goes on and into TOR.  I am writing this letter to voice concerns over the development of the game and more personally, what would make me happy and want to purchase the game.

My concerns are twofold.  Perhaps the most troubling is the lack of a third faction playable Faction in the TOR universe.  I would like think that the EA-Overmind would have seen the dynamicism a third faction brings to player versus player (PvP) interactions.  The prime example would be Mythic’s Dark Age of Camelot that you swallowed not to long ago.  The three way conflict in DAOC virtually guaranteed that some sort of action was going on somewhere in the virtual world.  Certainly, it was not perfect and even tri-faction PvP gets tiresome after awhile.  However, the novelty of two faction PvP wears off even more quickly as there are simply less options available to work with.  TOR seems destined to head down the well worn and unimaginative binary path of good vs. evil, light vs. dark, red vs. blue etc.   You speak of story and characterization as a key part of this MMO, yet when it comes to PvP, all the depth of character and backstory goes down the tubes and it is back to binary basics.

Halo 3 Review – Not because I care, but because it is funny. :)

Rough around the edges, viewer discretion advised (but funny!).

Lightsaber Porn

If there is one thing that makes my eyes widen and drool it is the unadulterated lightsaber porn of the Force Unleashed II trailer.  Witness…

Awesomeness squared~!~   It is horrible I know, but it is like my cortex turns off and the lizard brain takes over and goes…ohhhhh…coooooool.

The other doom of my time is the upcoming MMORPG being put out by Bioware, the Old Republic.  Even the music is fantastic.

I will just keep telling myself I am too old for these damn time-sinks and have much more important real life things to do.