Consider Mine Captured

So I officially gave up on The Force Unleashed over the weekend. Not permanently, mind you, but at least for the time being. Here's the thing. Apparently, the game was originally designed for consoles (think Playstation, XBox, Wii, etc.) and not for PC. But the company that made it wanted to cash in on us PC fans as well and so "ported" the original version into a more PC-friendly format.

I was not actually aware until recently (until I started reading up on on the forthcoming Dragon Age II, in fact) that this is actually a really complicated process. Designing a game for one platform (console or PC) creates all sorts of challenges when making a version for the other platform. Apparently this is the largest reason why there is usually a lag between the release of video games on the original platform and the release of the same game for the other platform. The creators have to decide if it is worth it to go through the trouble to update/change the game play mechanics required to release in the secondary format. This is why it is a huge deal that Bioware is releasing Dragon Age II across all platforms at the same time. There was a lot of work that went into making sure the game play experience was workable across consoles and PCs alike.

The Force Unleashed is a good example of how this complicated process can sometimes go wrong. To use the Force in the game on the PC version, you need to use a combination of keyboard keys and mouse buttons/movements. Most of the moves in the game require a specific series of buttons/keys be pressed in a specific sequence with just the right timing. I think overall the designers did a good job of making this work with a mouse and a keyboard, as opposed to with a singular game controller. But there is one spot where this seems to have failed spectacularly, and that is where I got stuck. Pulling down a star destroyer with the Force is a multi-step process that requires you to be very quick and and to be constantly moving your mouse in addition to pressing buttons and keys. This is rather a challenge when you think about how much room the average computer mouse has to maneuver in. You can only push it up so far before you have to pick it up and move it down to the bottom of your desk and start pushing up again. Unfortunately, this kind of screws up what you are trying to do in the game. Apparently, it is even worse if you have a trackball mouse, which, of course, I have.

So, basically, I have the worst possible computer set up of the PC version of the game, which is at a disadvantage already because this specific move (which is required to move forward in the game) really wasn't designed with a mouse in mind, and wasn't ported very well from console to PC. I spent a goodly amount of time on help-sites and walkthroughs and forums, and tried the tricks and tips they all suggested, but I still could not get that star destroyer out of the sky after multiple attempts. I tried using a different mouse, one without the trackball, but then I ran into the space issue. At this point, I am pretty sure it boils down to two things: I did not level up my character's Force abilities in the best configuration to get past this part quickly, and I am not quick enough to take down the waves of TIE Fighters in between attempts to pull the thing down (allowing it to move out of the required position, which means I waste time repositioning it when I could be pulling it down). To me, this says I just need to start over again and be more conscious of how I level up the next time around. I am going to do that, yes. But not right now. I don't think my hand will forgive me if I were to try.

My warrior elf from Dragon Age: Origins

For now, I am just going to put The Force Unleashed back onto the shelf and move on to the next thing. The next thing being all of the downloadable content for Dragon Age: Origins. Bioware recently(ish) released an "ultimate" edition of the game that included the original game, the expansion pack, and all of the downloadable content. This edition actually cost less than it would cost to purchase all of the DLC separately, and then my husband found it on sale, so he went ahead and bought it a little while ago.

Monday afternoon I decided to break it out, eager to play Witch Hunt, a follow-up adventure to the original game. After about an hour and a half spent wrestling with the game--which was telling me that all of the DLC was installed on my computer but unauthorized (It seems that there was some sort of glitch in the install script of the downloadable digital versions, which included ours since we bought it through Steam. Thankfully the Bioware message boards were quite helpful and once I finally gave them a gander I was able to find a quick and easy fix to get the DLC working. I am actually quite proud of myself for this, truth be told)--I was finally able to fire it up and dive back into Ferelden.

I love this game. It is so incredible. I think my favorite thing about the genre of fantasy is that it is designed to capture the imagination, to take you away to a completely different world where anything is possible. If you had told me even two or three years ago that I would be as enamored with a video game franchise as I am with, say, Stargate, I would have laughed you right out of the building.  But oh my goodness I am. I am not completely sure what turned me on to wanting to play this game, but once I found out about it, oh I wanted in. Before I ever got a copy of the game I found out IDW was doing a tie-in series of comics set in that world and went ahead and subscribed. By the time I finished the first one, I was absolutely determined to get the game as soon as freaking possible. (I had to wait a little while longer, but since I knew I had a birthday coming up, that made it a little bit easier to be patient.)

As soon as I finished playing the game, I hopped online to see if I could find anything about the sequel. I wasn't entirely sure I was correct that one was in development, but was pleasantly surprised to find out that one was, and was in fact due out in March. I preordered it that very night. I have eagerly been following the news about Dragon Age II, drinking in everything I can, bouncing up and down in anticipation. And it is so close now. So close. That is, in fact, why I decided to go ahead and play the DLC now, since it won't be the length of a full game and it will whet my appetite for what is to come in just a few weeks.

So, I started playing Dragon Age again on Monday. If you keep an ear to the geeky grapevine, you might have noticed yesterday when it exploded with the news that Felicia Day, who I adore, announced that she has been working with Bioware to create a six-episode web series set in the Dragon Age world, taking place, in fact, during the events of the new game. Holy frikkin' cow! I spent much of yesterday bouncing in excitement over this news. Felicia Day. And Dragon Age. Together!

There are all sorts of stories about the news. You can read a story about the series here. There's a celebrity gamer profile on Felicia Day here. Felicia blogs about her own thoughts on the project here. Oh, and Bioware now has a blurb about it on the official Dragon Age II site here. Felicia will also be on Jimmy Fallon's talk show tonight with a sneak preview of the new series, score!

In addition to ramping up my excitement for the new game, as well as getting me all giddy about the web series, yesterday's Dragon Age-related news had another little jewel of information for me. There is an official prequel book to the first game. Actually there are two of them. The reviews on Amazon suggest they (both written by the same author, who was one of the story developers on the game) are actually pretty spectacular. Gonna have to pick those up PDQ in order to sate my thirst for all things Dragon Age.

So, um, yeah. If the purpose of epic fantasy is to capture the audience's imagination, I can only say well done, Bioware, well done.

Where the Heck Did This Wall Come From?

Wow, I am so stuck in my game right now. It's not that I don't know what I need to do to get unstuck, it is just a matter of actually keeping my character alive long enough to do that. Sigh.

A quick look through some of the online walkthroughs for the game suggest that this is a point at which many people get stuck, so at least I am in good company, I suppose. Those walkthroughs also seem to suggest that I am actually nearing the end of the game already, which is kind of a crazy surprise. Though if the game really is that short, I will not complain, that means it will be one I can pick up and play again often.

Because, you see, I really am enjoying this game, despite the fact that Star Wars: The Force Unleashed seems to share a major similarity with the last game I played, and in something I did not actually previously enjoy. Remember when I griped that the last game was just a bunch of cut-scenes with a little bit of game play in between? The Force Unleashed is actually doing the same thing. But you know what? It is doing it a heck of a lot better.

This definitely isn't a traditional role playing game, where you get to design your character and choose the class and make decisions that affect how your story arc goes.  Which I guess I should have expected from what I know about the story, but it has all of the other game play elements of RPGs that I enjoy, so I am still having fun with it. Plus, lightsabers. Also, multiple crystals you can find to change the color of and damage inflicted by your lightsaber. Awesome sauce.

One of the things I am, surprisingly, enjoying a lot in this game is that it rewards you for being a total jerk. You get extra points for killing people in creative ways (like using the Force to pick up a stormtrooper and then throwing him into three more stormtroopers, knocking them all off the edge of a platform into the pit of lava, for example). You refill your health bar by killing people and therefore draining their life energy. It makes sense, of course, because the character you are playing is a Sith-in-training. Given that in the previous Star Wars games I've played I have never enjoyed going dark side, I am surprised how much I am enjoying it here. But it is kind of a nice way to burn off negative energy, I've gotta say.

I will do a more thorough writeup once I've finished the game, I am sure, but I did want to give a quick update. Hopefully I can suck it up and get past this stuck part today or tomorrow.

Tonight I am going out with my friend Miss T for another ladies' night! We're going to the Movie Tavern to see The King's Speech. I am super excited about all of the Britishness that awaits. Also, movie theaters that serve sweet iced tea are always a bonus in my book.

Don't forget to swing by the Gronk site to check out today's strip! I will be spending much of today plotting on how to make a hat like Gronk's for my very own...

Have a great weekend folks.

Final Thoughts on Kingdom Hearts

I did indeed finish up Kingdom Hearts II on Friday, as I had hoped that I would, yay! The final battle was both more and less ridiculous than the final battle in the first Kingdom Hearts. I wouldn't have thought that was possible, but apparently I was wrong about that. Overall, I think I would give the game a C ++ or a B -. It is really somewhere in between there. Honestly, I think if there hadn't been so many cut scenes, and if they hadn't, all of them, been so long, I would have enjoyed this game a lot more.

The general plot of this game was kind of interesting, actually. A quick refresher of the back story:

In the first game, Sora's world is destroyed by the Heartless, and he is separated from his friends Riku and Kairi, so embarks on a quest to find them. The Powers That Be decided that he is a Chosen One of some sort, and the only person who can stop the darkness, so he is granted the ability to wield the Keyblade, which releases the hearts stolen by the Heartless as they destroy worlds. He teams up with Donald and Goofy, who are searching for King Mickey (who is also trying to stop the Heartless and restore the worlds they have already destroyed). Together, the three seal off many worlds infiltrated by the Heartless (using the Keyblade), saving those worlds from destruction. There are also seven princesses (of which Kairi is one) who are being kidnapped by the Disney villains because their hearts combined can unlock a door which leads to Kingdom Hearts, the heart of all worlds (I think). Possessing Kingdom Hearts means great power, which all villains are after. So, Sora stops the villains, saves Kairi, and finds Riku and Mickey, only to be separated from them at the last moment, in the act of sealing the darkness away.

In Kingdom Hearts II we learn that when a very strong-willed person becomes a Heartless another kind of entity, known as a Nobody, is created from the body left behind by that person. These Nobodies are under the control of Organization XIII, a group of alpha-Nobodies who want to gain control of Kingdom Hearts so that they can be granted hearts of their own and therefore become real people, not shadows. Sora knows that Kairi has been safely returned home, but he is still seeking out Riku (and Mickey). In his search, he keeps running into Nobodies and Organization XIII, who have begun using the Heartless to attract the attention of the wielder of the Keyblade. They are harvesting the hearts released when Sora kills Heartless with the Keyblade, attempting to create their own Kingdom Hearts. So Sora must go from world to world, trying to find a trace of Riku, and fighting off Heartless and Nobodies, and the members of Organization XIII, eventually realizing he must defeat Organization XIII on their own ground--which he does with the help of Riku, Kairi, and Mickey, who he, Donald, and Goofy do find in their travels.

I am probably not explaining it that well, there was a lot going on here. Maleficent and Pete were running around too, but I am still not quite certain what their endgame was. I think they may be leaving that for the next game. As I said, a pretty good basis for the plot, but I am not sure it was executed all that well. I feel like the story and the game play were actually two separate elements. The game play didn't seem to further the story along. It just moved you from point A to point B so you could get to the next cut scene. Even on the world map, when there was something new to do on a world you had already visited, the verbiage they used was "New episode available!" In a truly good story-based video game, the story needs be integrated into the game play itself, not a separate entity, at least in my opinion.

So, that's the story aspect of the game. Now, how about the actual game play? Hmm. I felt like this game was a little schizophrenic. It is as if the game designers were trying out several different ideas that really would have been better suited to be in several different games. Maybe there would have been a better way to get them to work with each other, but if so, they did not nail the formula in KH II, I can tell you that. It was just all over the place.

Some of the ideas were "upgrades" to the gaming system in the first game, tweaks here and there to how you could access items and magic and summons. They also added in "reaction commands" which meant that you pressed a certain button at a specific time when you got the right indicator on the screen. For many enemies, the only way to beat them was using reaction commands, and I feel like that takes some of the fun out of it. There is no developing and playing with your own set of skills, be it certain magical attacks or weapon combos, or limit commands. The limit commands were interesting, you could get skills used in conjunction with the other members of your team. My favorite was Donald's "comet" command, which would allow you to surround your enemy with fireworks that did lots of damage, and was also fun to look at.

There were a few puzzle-solving points in the game, which were okay, but seemed to be awkwardly placed. There was also the Little Mermaid level, which was entirely just about teaching you to hit buttons at the right time. You were helping Sebastian and Ariel put together the musical, and so had to sit through lots of random songs, hitting buttons at the right time in order to get past the level (kind of like Guitar Hero, but nowhere near as fun). It was weird and random and really had no place in this game.

As far as the actual combat goes, I don't even know where to start on that one. As I said, most enemies had specific reaction commands, and that was the only way to defeat them. The actual difficulty level of each enemy seemed to vary widely, and not in a way proportional to your experience level or how far along in the game the enemy appeared. There was, for every non-standard Heartless or Nobody a "trick" for how to defeat them. This was more puzzle-solving I guess, but less overt. Once the trick was figured out, it was usually just a matter of patience to defeat the enemy, but as someone who prefers to just run in an wale on things with my sword, I did not really enjoy this kind of combat at all. Also, the actual in-game reaction time was really skewed by all of the special commands and actions, so it was kind of hard to tell at any given point whether or not I was actually in control of my character. An "information" bar was added at the top of the screen with hints or instructions about your objective scrolling by. When it wasn't as distracting as all get out, it was usually information that was painfully obvious. I know this game was probably designed for a younger demographic than me, but I am pretty sure younger gamers are way better at this stuff than I am. They probably don't like being spoon-fed either.

I think the big problem was that there was just so much stuff on the screen you had to keep an eye on aside from your character and his foe. I never knew where to look. If I was paying attention to the actual fighting, I missed crucial information from the scroll bar, or didn't see when a reaction command became available. If I tried to read the scroll bar, I totally got my butt kicked while I was looking the other way. If I kept my eyes on the command box, then I missed moments when I should have been blocking and got more damage than I would have otherwise taken. It just felt like a no-win situation. In many cases, when the battle ended, I was sitting there looking at the screen with no idea what had just happened. I can only look at so many things at once, and this game wanted me to be looking at two more at least at any given time.

I don't know how much of the engine for this game is based on the Final Fantasy series, but I suspect a lot. I am wondering though, how players of FF would stack this game up against their franchise. I find myself hoping that the problems with KH simply arise from the designers trying to take the FF engine and gear it towards a younger demographic while trying to make multiple Disney stories fit into their already kind of contrived plot line. Maybe when they are making up their own world it feels more cohesive. My husband has asked me to give Final Fantasy VI a try, he says that is considered the definitive entry in the series. So after I play that maybe I'll have a clearer view of what went wrong with KH, or if I am just not cut out to play in that pool.

Either way, my copies of Kingdom Hearts and Kingdom Hearts II will be going along to be traded in the next time I visit my local Gamestop.

I started Star Wars: The Force Unleashed this weekend and already feel much more in my element. Maybe I am just a PC RPG gamer and I needed KH to make me see it. Also, the graphics on this thing are freaking fantastic. Wow.

Got Myself a Carrot

Heh.  At the very end of last year, I sat down and went through all of the console video games we have here at home, sorting them into several piles:  Played (Keep), Played (Trade In), Mini-Games or Party Games, Want to Play, No Interest.  I let Hubby know that he needs to go through the Trade In and No Interest piles soon and pull out anything he wants to keep before I take the rest to Game Stop.  The Want to Play pile is fairly substantial.  We have games for several different consoles--Playstation, Playstation 2, Gamecube, and Wii (we have a PS2 and a Wii system, which between them will play all of those games).

Then I went through my Amazon wish list and made a list of the games on there that I really want to actually get and play through (the RPGs), as opposed to the party games and mini-games that I would like to have but am not that serious about.  I then checked my open orders to see what games I have already preordered.  I also pulled out a few of Hubby's PC games that I want to or that he would like me to play and noted the PC games I have played that I would like to play again.

Then, I sat down and made myself a Game Plan.  I listed out all of the games I would like to play and tried to figure out a good order for them.  I did my best to balance out PC games with console games, estimate how long it usually takes me to play a game so I could figure out where to put the preordered games (which I will want to play as soon as they come out in most cases), and find good places to stick in the replays (some of which I might want to do before sequels come out). I wrote the list down on a piece of notebook paper and placed it in the back of my desk calendar for handy reference.

I fully acknowledge that this Game Plan is just a guide that I am sure will be subject to some rearranging.  For one thing, I started it thinking it would be my plan for 2011, but I somehow doubt I am going to make it through even half of these games this year.  For another, a certain Star Wars MMORPG that I will not name here is supposed to go live sometime this year.  Once that does it is going to wreak havoc on my other game playing for sure.  I just didn't expect to be messing with the Game Plan so darn soon.

As you know, I am currently playing Kingdom Hearts II, which is the second game on my list, since I started with the game I was playing at the time I made the list.  The next game on the list is Epic Mickey, which my super awesome sister got me for Christmas.  But.  I don't think I can do it.  For one thing, once I finish KHII, I am going to be a little burnt out on the console gaming, as well as on Disney, for a bit.  For another, my silly self went and treated myself to The Force Unleashed when I was purchasing something entirely unrelated on Amazon but realized I had a little bit of extra expendable cash at the time.  So The Force Unleashed has been sitting on my computer tower for the last week, just patiently radiating awesomeness and calling to me every time I sit down to check my email or write my blog.  As this was a "to buy" game at the time I made my list, it is way way far down there, but I think it is going to be next.  Heck, I even went ahead and installed it this weekend, I couldn't help myself.

I think I am about 2/3 of the way through KHII, maybe a little less, it is really hard to tell.  I did have to finally crack a peek at a few walkthroughs in order to figure out how to beat a required mini-game involving light cycles in the Tron level and then again to beat one of the circle of bad guys that I finally defeated yesterday.  I might have scrolled through the list of worlds just to get an idea of how far I was, and found out that even though there are pretty much no new worlds left, I still have to visit each of them again for another boss fight, and a few of them multiple times still.  Sigh.  Though I will admit the game is starting to get a bit more engaging, at least.  Still, I have been slogging through this game.  Part of it, I will admit, is because I have pretty much given up my evening gaming sessions.  But it wasn't exactly hard.  I suspect other games will make this decision much more challenging to adhere to.  Usually when I am playing a game I tend to get really sucked in, and I want to play it every minute possible, because I can't wait to see what is next.  Even with the first game, which I had played most of already, I was driven to keep going.

But with The Force Unleashed waiting oh so patiently on my desktop, I now have the motivation to plow through this thing.  Maybe that's all I've been needing all along.