Some Assembly Required

 So like so many others right now, I've bought the Avengers game. I've not played much so far, but I have observed something: this game doesn't know who it's aimed at. Combat is crowded and a little frantic but instead of plowing through like you'd think for a game with mass appeal, you are supposed to dodge and parry based on fairly short warnings that are almost constant when surrounded by enemies. Fail to do so and you are not only injured (as one would expect) but your attacks are interrupted. You're supposed to play like an expert or you'll just keep stumbling around feeling far from a super powered hero.

Then there are the skill trees and gear systems. Playing the story missions requires a "power" level otherwise you'll be unlikely to succeed, but gear and skill management is one of those annoying things that gets in the way of pursuing the story. And you have to constantly manage gear, because you have so little inventory space, most equipment will just become fodder for deconstruction, because multiple resource systems are also another thing that is present but interferes with the average person who just wants to play the story.

The game keeps throwing this and tutorial missions at you to teach you the systems you'll be diving into when you "finish" the game and focus on grinding the multiplayer. But why does the multiplayer need to intrude on the story for a single player experience? It seems like a lot of the multiplayer is recycled missions and assets from the story anyway, but in an effort to drag out the content and squeeze it for all it's worth, the game has an unintended (or perhaps not) side effect of alienating someone who just wants to see a story and feel like a superhero.

Perhaps it's just me, but it seems like games are being designed now where the closest to "fun" you can get is just picking the lowest difficulty and hoping it's not too aggravating.

Limited Functionality Is My Nemesis

Well, it's been a while. I wanted to take a little time to complain a little more coherently than I did during my live streams of Resident Evil 3. This does concern more than that game specifically however. My thoughts are a but scattered but the essential point to make is about functionality. Although it could also fall under that derided gaming attribution: "accessibility".

I've personally found RE3's dodge mechanic to be inconsistent, rather like that of Bayonetta, which I went back and forth about during streams pointing out how late it needed to be then suddenly getting a perfect dodge way earlier than I expected, only to find myself then dodging too early then pushing for late dodges then getting hit, and so on. Some people seem to have no trouble perfectly timing a dodge in RE3, good for them. But to me that only draws attention to the problem, that the dodge is ineffective.

By which I mean that pressing the button for "quick step" does indeed step quickly, but in most circumstances it is useless. One exception that springs to mind is the sequence when fleeing from Nemesis while shoots you with a rocket launcher. Otherwise, using the dodge can actually cause harm rather than evade it. Try dodging past a zombie and they grab you, even successfully timing a perfect dodge away from one enemy can send you into the clutches of another. There appears to be no invincible frames of the animation when used normally and you still have some recovery before you can move normally or dodge again.

The perfect dodge on the other hand, evades the attack, provides some invincible frames, gives you an opportunity for a counterattack, and recovers faster. The regular dodge is largely pointless save for being a vector for perfect dodges. Frankly, this is a terrible idea. Rather like games by From Software (which I haven't played, this is going off of observation not experience) or some fighting games, function for the average player is rudimentary, with most of it being reserved for more expert players.

This itself is not quite the problem, for instance I understand there aren't many ways to make some things easier such as learning a musical instrument (that one is from personal experience). The problem arises when packaged in an entertainment format, such as a video game, that is sold to all. This is not a skill that one learns to be able to produce creative expression, this is someone paying to be entertained and instead being frustrated. If your response is along the lines of "get good", I would offer the frustrated a better piece of advice: get a refund.

It brings to mind the "controversy" that arose around Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, last year. From Software made a game for expert players, but sold it to everyone. I don't want to delve into all that nonsense here, I bring this up mainly to point out why there was bad press and negative feedback about the game - because it was not made for the average player, but they were certainly willing to take the average player's money. Due to that, they have to take that criticism, because the skill of the player doesn't invalidate their experience. Not to mention there are so many other aspects to a game than just its difficulty, but gamer elitism is also not the point of this post.

Function was limited for average players. Rather than being something that worked for everyone, but was more rewarding for those using it effectively, it was something that had little practical value for a non-expert player. Personally, I found myself trying to avoid using the dodge in RE3 and falling back on my RE2 experiences of keeping distance and wearing enemies down. Unfortunately, the game isn't designed to let you do that most of the time.

If instead the dodge worked as some sort of action-roll with some invincible frames, but if timed perfectly allowed for a follow-up attack with higher or guaranteed critical chance, then at least it would have universal function but reward expert use. Even in such a situation there are ways to limit the practicality of spamming the dodge and never being hit, since of course you'd be spending all your time not attacking. For a game that really seems intent of having you avoid regular enemies anyway, it sure does restrict your ability to do so. And not just with the dodge, but also the environment.

Sorry it took so long to get to the main point I wanted to make; I do try to explain myself and the situation, and also it's been a while since I did a lot of writing. What it boils down to is: you can ignore all my ravings and complaints made while enraged if you want, but they are my experiences with the game, and they're no less valid than your own. Whether you think it's a good game and I think it's a bad game is irrelevant to the fact that I'm not going to say that I like this game, certainly not when compared to its predecessor (by which I mean RE2 remake, not the original RE3).

As I found with a second playthrough on a lower difficulty, my complaints from that first run were not because of the difficulty setting, because I had the same complaints on standard as I did on hardcore. I'm not even attempting nightmare mode until I've unlocked some good bonuses. Which means, yes, I'll still be playing the game - but I didn't call my channel Joyless Gaming for nothing.

My Complaints from RE4

EDIT: The below was written a week after an unpleasant experience playing the game so I must clear up that there is indeed some camera tracking with movement, specifically turning. However the character still controls independently of the camera since you can make it off-centre and run at weird angles. After a little investigation it turns out this is because of the PC version's mouse controls - strangely enough with a controller, movement of the camera with the right stick reverts to centre after the stick is released, which is possibly the reason many Steam reviews suggest playing with a controller. It must however be the only reason as everything else is still just as horrible only now you're aiming with your thumb instead of your whole hand.

I still feel my complaints are justified and that my criticism stands because the controls are still not great and they are not the only problem with the game, just the most immediately noticeable.

ORIGINAL POST FOLLOWS:

If anyone had actually watched my streams of RE4 they might wonder why I complain so much about their beloved game experience, so for those weirdos who have actually seen my atrocious gameplay I thought I'd clarify. The control scheme for RE4 is bad. It wouldn't be so much of a problem if the game weren't constantly foisting combat upon the player, but it does and it highlights how bad the game controls for action.

Most significantly, the character moves independently of the camera, which is a holdover from the previous games and their fixed camera angles. This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact the you are also given control of the camera. When you turn, the camera stays in place, the only time character movement and camera movement coincides is when you're running, and due to the fairly large turning circle, the camera doesn't move very quickly - which is probably why they only matched the camera to movement under those circumstances, since it would be easier.

Now what this means is that during combat situations (of which there are many) you can't easily respond to threats because spotting them doesn't correspond to moving away or towards them. It does correspond to aiming - which is really the only reason I can see that you have control of the camera in the first place - however aiming always roots you in place and further restricts your view to allow for "precision" aiming. I say "precision" because it is a bit wobbly and while there is a laser sight it's not always easy to spot - basically it turns a marginally accurate shooter such as myself into an even more marginally accurate shooter.

This move to more accurate aiming is likely what most people found to be an improvement for the series, however with the restricted viewpoint and awkward movement it turns being surrounded by enemies into a mess of frustration. I may have said this elsewhere but: if you're more afraid of the mechanics of a game than of the content, it's not a scary game, just a bad one. Fighting the controls at the same time as trying to fight enemies is not fun. I know that it's supposed to be survival horror, but the real horror is the control scheme. As I said above - if the game wasn't constantly throwing enemies at you the controls would totally serviceable, but as it stands they are a hindrance. Limited resources can make a scary game as long as there's also limited combat, but the resources aren't all that limited in RE4 (although I'm only playing it on "Normal") and the combat is frequent.

In a nutshell: the amount of action in RE4 really should have a better action game control scheme. That is without all the added frustration of sudden quick-time events and escort missions (not really missions as such, just action sections where you have to protect someone, but "escort mission" is a more recognised term). The controls didn't have to conform to the whole strafing movement model, but having control of the camera relate to control of the character is a much better option.

That all took a little longer than I anticipated but as a final thought I wanted to make reference as to why the "tank" controls and fixed cameras were used by Resident Evil in the first place. The short answer is because of Alone In The Dark. The slightly longer answer is that Alone used fixed cameras because it was rendering a 3D environment (a very early 3D rendering), and that is easier to do if the camera doesn't move. The Resident Evil developers managed to make a more detailed environment by not actually rendering the environment but using high resolution (for the time) images and mapping player paths into the rendered image.

The point being that when you have a fixed camera, controlling your character relative to themselves works fine, especially since Alone didn't focus too much on combat. None of those technical limitations were a problem for the team making Resident Evil 4 and there was no need to retain the controls traditional to the series.

So I guess in summary: my gripe with the game has nothing really to do with the content and everything to do with actually controlling and playing the game. So if you enjoy watching someone not have fun while sucking at games, I guess you'll like my play of RE4, maybe?

Unjustified Greed - Grind, or Buy

So I just wanted to make a slightly more articulate addendum to this video I just posted (warning for coarse language):



The Source Crystal currency in Injustice 2 is the real-money "premium" currency. Thankfully I've not found a way to spend them on the RNG loot crates called Mother Boxes (at least on PC, maybe you can buy them on consoles?), but they are still the only guaranteed method for obtaining shaders and "premier" shaders (which completely reskin the character into someone else, such as turning Superman into Bizarro). Shaders may be randomly obtained from Mother Boxes, key word being "random" (getting sick of "random" appearing so often in games), so it's grind or buy.

That aside, you can also spend large amounts of Source Crystals to instantly level up characters, a "feature" that only exists because they decided to make it so characters have levels instead of just being as they are. This "feature" only exists to encourage players to spend money in order to save time, time which is only being saved because the game was designed to make you grind instead of just being playable. Characters also have equipment, which is levelled, and of varying appearance. So another "feature" is being able to spend Source Crystals to either level up your gear (because it has stat boosts, obviously), or to change its appearance to that of another piece of gear, to get the look you desire.

Cost of levelling or morphing gear is unknown to me since I've not even wanted to know. Cost of a "common" shader is 4000 crystals; Cost of a "rare" is 5000; Cost of the "premier" shaders is 6000 crystals. Levelling a new character to 20 costs 10,000 crystals. As I mentioned in the video, these two Multiverse events combined award 1000 crystals. Crystals are also awarded from the story mode, the first time you play it, as well as levelling up your account ranking. I currently am at account level 72, and have just under 18,000 crystals, my intent being to unlock the remaining premier shaders with them.

I would like to emphasise the word "unlock" from that last sentence - because of course this content is already in the game, so that I have the data available if I encounter someone online who is using a shader I don't have unlocked, obviously. So I already have them, I'm just not permitted to use them, because I'm supposed to pay more money to unlock something in a game I already paid for. Yes they could eventually be obtained without paying extra, but the sheer random nature of loot boxes means it could take an unreasonable amount of time, which is ignoring the fact that it is already unreasonable to manipulate random drop rates to encourage players to buy instead of play.

If you can't encourage people to keep playing your game without random loot drops and fishing for microtransaction payoffs, maybe you shouldn't be making games. Well, I guess it makes money and who cares about customer satisfaction? My general point was that this Multiverse offering does not constitute generosity, given how often it would need to be available to unlock content through play rather than microtransactions. I'm not the first to make any of these points, I don't want to have to point this stuff out in the first place.

The Disappointment Will Be Live

So in addition to my last post from whenever ago, I'm now also on Twitch since I've just been put on the NBN and have slightly better internet. A bit more slightly than I approve of, especially since it's more slight than the first few days of my new connection. I guess I'm just supposed to put up with it?

Anyway, nothing much on my Twitch channel just yet, a few archived Fallout 4 streams, playing "survival" difficulty. I should post here more often, I could use it as a reference point for further discussion outside of the stream-of-consciousness of my videos/streams. I'll get around to doing a full length playthrough of the Mortal Kombat X story sometime soon, but I don't have a schedule so my unpredictable mood guides me.

See you around, maybe?

Shameless Self-promotion Ahead

Hey all you people who aren't reading this: I'm on YouTube now.

Yeah it's not that exciting, but if I get about 9,500 more views I can apply for AdSense revenue on my crappy videos of me sucking at games and complaining about it.

What more could you want?

MMMKAY

So, hello there. It's been a while. Not much has happened. Stuff and things, sleep, wake, eat, drink, be miserable because tomorrow's a lie.

Anyway, news, for anyone who gives a crap: I'm out of Marvel Heroes. Done. Developer can go bankrupt for all I care. They were insulting and condescending to a large portion of their consumer base (which I feel included myself) and so I'm done with their garbage. I could complain more but I don't wanna. Two months so far but should continue forever.

So, what has filled my time since then? Nothing that might be a improvement to my situation, of course. That would make too much sense. No, first it was a trip back to old faithful Fallout: New Vegas. One of my favourite games, ever. I've even considered a piece about how it's so much better than Fallout 3 that would've gone quite well if I'd worked it into talking about the Fallout 4 announcement when that happened. But of course, I'm behind, it's no longer relevant and nobody cares, at least until the game comes out.

But, I did pick up a couple of new games recently (although there are some slightly older games that I bought around Christmas that I've yet to play), one of which was Batman: Arkham Knight. Yeah... I haven't played it yet, waiting for a patch that is supposed to make the PC version not suck everything, ever.

The other might be gleaned (if you've somehow got insight into the twisted workings of my mind) from the joke title of this entry. No? OK, it's Mortal Kombat X. This one at least does work, because I only bought it after I saw reviews mentioning that it had finally been patched to "playable" status. And to their credit, they seem to have gotten on top if things over at wherever they've farmed out the PC port. Only took them a couple of months post-release. Kind of disturbing that it should be pretty much expected these days.

Anyway, what should be more disturbing is all the violence in MKX but I'm evil and jaded so it's just more of the same. Steam is telling me I've clocked 279 hours (as of this writing) in game so far in the six or so weeks I've had it. Have I mastered it in that time? Of course not, I've only just finished sampling all the characters and unlocking all their "kombat[sic] kard[sic]" backgrounds, borders and icons. Twenty-nine characters, three variations each, fifty wins with each variation...

Do NOT get this game. All right, you can get it if you want, but beware. You will NOT want this on PC, simply because the population of players online is limited (especially here in Australia) and those you come across will likely be better than you, will have no sympathy for beginners, or lag, and you will NOT have fun. On consoles you still likely won't have fun, but at least you'll find more people to play against.

Offline, the computer cheats. Its AI is set to either "do nothing" or "cheat". You pretty much only get somewhere when it's letting you win. That said, play on easy and try the story mode for fun. Or if for some reason you're interested in the story but don't want to play it (?) then just watch it on YouTube.

If you're a competitive pro-type, you've probably already played it, or decided to play something else, so what are you doing here reading my advice for? You don't play games for fun or entertainment, you play them to win at something. Sad really, but lucrative seeing as how there have been some big tournaments involving MKX recently, with more to come.

Otherwise, nothing. Same as it ever was, sky is blue, there's water at the bottom of the ocean, time to retire, I think.

MEH - a Mass Effect retrospective (I couldn't think of a better title that also included the initials "ME")

So it's that long awaited thingy I was going to write about the Mass Effect series, and it's going to be a disappointment... I think that was meant to be a joke about the reaction to Mass Effect 3. It's not going to be detailed or well researched since I'm barely mustering the effort to do anything these days, but it will be done. Also not going to bother recapping story or anything like that, too much effort.

EFFECT THE FIRST

Mass Effect was at the time something quite different from what I'd played before. Not wholly unfamiliar, but it was not the kind of game I'd been playing. In retrospect it's rather like a throwback to old 80's and early 90's types of role-playing computer games: epic story, underdog hero, gear progression, lots (and lots) of talking (but now fully voiced like living in the future). Oddly enough, while I think there is merit in older RPG styles and implementations, I must be getting old because Mass Effect now just feels so bloated.

Most of it is busy work - the story itself is fairly long and the side stuff usually quite short, but all that side questing feels necessary since you need the XP otherwise you'll have a hard time getting through the story since you'll not be a high level. Example: early part of the story where you get to choose which mission you take, well to me the obvious first choice was to go get Liara (daughter of early confirmed villain Beneziah). However, after going through all the stupid crap to actually rescue Liara you then have what I guess amounts to a boss fight against some mercs led by a Krogan who will kick all manner of excretions out of you unless you've levelled up sufficiently (or put it on the lowest difficulty setting, which is another nuisance these days where it seems like you (I) need to play in the lowest difficulty for it to be fun; like "easy" = fun, "normal" = hard).

So the game can really drag on which kind of sucks, since a lot of the side stuff is where the fun actually is - exploring a planet's surface in the Mako, scouting uncharted worlds for resources and information; not always essential to the plot, which is why it's fun, but when you must to do it to level up, well it becomes a chore rather than an indulgence.

I didn't mind the gearing up, or even the skill selection since it allowed you to play a certain way and support strengths/weaknesses with gear and squadmates. But again, when you must do this, it gets annoying. Combat was... well it was there, at least. About the only thing that made it interesting to me was that guns never run out of ammo, they just heat up, so it was a different kind of weapon control rather than just "empty the mag". They killed that for the sequels, but at least they also streamlined the combat ("streamlined" doesn't necessarily mean "improved").

Oh yes, the talking. So. Much. Talking. Again, the number of options available in dialogue (also reduced in the sequels) would not normally bother me if it weren't for the fact that most of it is irrelevant. There's such a simplistic karma system (and it's not alone) that you'll stick to the "Paragon/Renegade" choices to ensure that there's a point to your even bothering to talk in the first place. At least the streamlining of the dialogue for the sequels works, since it was unlikely they were going to make that many variables be accounted for in character interactions.

In sum: fun at the time. Now I'd like the notion of replaying it, but not the reality.

ME TOO

Well they kill you in the opening sequence, that was unexpected (unless you watched all the promotional material, I guess).

The story here seems so much more focused, not so much in a good way, because it makes you and all your actions seem smaller. Hell, the environments feel smaller (most of them actually are, too). The importance of your mission is relentlessly hammered into you, yet the game and it's world (well, galaxy) seem so much smaller than in the first game. I'm not quite sure how this happened, maybe it's just because you spend less time on the Citadel and interacting with the Council than in the first, coupled with the smaller environments.

Pretty much no gear progression here, there are slightly better versions of each weapon type that you can purchase going through the game, but they're not so spectacular that it matters. Your own progression matters a little more because of this, despite the reduced number of skills and that all active powers now share a cooldown rather than have their own. This I think was supposed to make you rely more on your squad, since they introduced power combos here, but they didn't really get that right until ME3. So combat is a lot more cover-based action shooter than the first, even though the first was still technically a third-person cover based shooter as well.

They did make your class selection more significant for combat though, with each class getting a unique power that was supposed to define them and their playstyle. So you cloak your sniper, or warp your Vanguard into your enemy's face before shotgunning them into oblivion. It worked better than class distinction in the first game, but was again something that was more refined in ME3.

A little less conversation, a little more shooting people in the face. The Paragon/Renegade system got an upgrade with the "interrupts" that can occur during dialogue. They were heavily scripted, usually it was one or the other, not many places where you could use either one, and those situations usually presented the interrupt that tied with your preceding dialogue choices (the immediately preceding choices, it wasn't so sophisticated as to recognise your entire persona, but given that you would be going all good or all bad for the most part, it doesn't really matter). Generally, the Renegade options were more fun and entertaining, even if it does reveal your inner sociopath.

And the tedious resource collection that was essential for upgrading the ship which was essential for not letting all of your crew members die during the final mission. The crew loyalty missions were fine, there was character development and backstory contained within them. But instead of exploring worlds for fun and seeing what was there, you're firing probes at them to get minerals. NOT ENOUGH MINERALS! It's like playing Starcraft again...

ME2 really focused on the one mission that is stated from the beginning, the only reason the game is as long as it is, is because of recruiting your team and then gaining their loyalty. The actual "story" is really short this time around, and with a larger cast of characters, the world feels smaller? It's strange, but BioWare accomplished it here.

In sum: more "fun" to replay, but damn does it take a long time to make sure no one dies in the final mission.

MASSIVELY EFFECTING

I actually like Mass Effect 3 a lot more than my original review would let on. Probably because, more than the previous two, it actually made me feel something. Or maybe it just happened to come along when I was suffering emotional instability. The Paragon/Renegade thing is so far streamlined in this game that there aren't really any "neutral" responses any more. But beyond that, this time around being a Renegade actually feels like you're the bad guy. All Renegade decisions (and Renegade decisions inherited from the previous games) feel like the wrong choice. Sure the game still lets you go on after doing it, but instead of making you feel like a badass or even just a likeable dick, now you feel like a supervillain, abandoning many to die, condemning species to extinction, classy stuff.

Needless to say, this did not aid my mental state. On the other hand, being the good guy felt overwhelming emotionally as well, but at least I wasn't sacrificing all my friends to a damn near impossible to see "greater good". So, it actually feels like your choices matter in this game, until you get to the ending, which is why everyone hated it. The two complaints about the ending that I usually see are that it was perfunctory, which was addressed (somewhat) by the "Extended Cut" free DLC; and that after three games worth of stuff, everything came down to the "war assets" counter in the third game and a simple dialogue choice of which ending you'd like. Without enough war assets then you don't get to choose the ending, but you'd have to speed-run the game to not accumulate enough, especially after the Extended Cut reduced the required amount for maximum readiness.

But everything, story-wise, up to the ending was, as stated above, massively effecting, at least to me. Game-wise, well...

Combat was more finely tuned here but still much like ME2 in style. Powers still share a cooldown but now your weapons (or lack of) affect cooldown reduction, meaning you can play more powers-based classes (tech, biotic) more effectively on your own, and the return of weapon mods means you can just run around with a pistol boosting your powers, or armed to the teeth with high-powered guns and forget about powers altogether. I'd not recommend the second approach though, since you need to be in cover quite a lot otherwise you die a lot. Higher difficulties are actually easier with powers rather than guns, at least for me.

As mentioned in my first review though, combat it really just filler for continuing the cut-scenes or getting to new conversations. The fact that you can win a fight, nay, you must win a fight in order to witness a cut-scene where you get the crap kicked out of you is really galling.

Interactions are a hell of a lot more limited, there don't seem to be as many "interrupts" as before, and not quite as many charm/intimidate dialogue choices. They also seem to be tied to the generic "reputation" counter rather than the specific Paragon/Renegade meters, meaning that for the most part, you can play either way you want in a single play-through if the mood takes you. I was attempting such with my recent play-through, but haven't mustered the will to keep playing it, which leads me to...

TRILOGICALLY

There are so few real variations between character interactions that you end up replaying really long games to see minor differences or hear a few different lines of dialogue. The series, as a whole, is a real slog to replay, I'm surprised I managed it as many times as I have, but most of that has not been recent, so it's probably a combination of personal issues as well.

The music was great across the series, interesting to hear the progression there (I'm fairly certain they all had the same composer).

The scale of the games went up and down, ME3 really did manage to get back to a real sense of significance and large scale impact.

The characters were always a high point, well written, well acted, fun to have around and chat with.

One place they really botched it was with the Reapers and their origin. Apparently there were different ideas but then certain people left the company so they came up with something else, which happened to be quite stupid. Original ideas aside, with what was included with the Leviathan DLC for ME3 you could of still made it somewhat logical: instead of them being machines created by the apex of biological evolution to prevent the loss of lesser "thrall/tribute" species to their own machines which, surprise, then turned on their own creators to prevent them being destroyed by machines (and the Reapers are too dumb to realise that they turned on their own creators and thus actually failed their task but they think it's OK because they've preserved every species they've harvested)  - just make it so that they were just trying to preserve those species from natural attrition, and the machines had the insight that they should "preserve" their creators as well, just in case.

But no - "hmm, these organics keep getting destroyed by their own machines, let's make some machines to destroy them first, but preserve their genetic code, and hope that those machines don't then do what we seem to think all machines do, which is to turn on their creators and destroy them". My way is using the exact same setup and framework, yet manages to be infinitely less stupid. Hell, even if it were just a rip-off of the Borg where they were using other organisms to further improve themselves it would've been less stupid.

So yes, I'd prefer not to have to sit through another "machines will destroy us all" story, they are mostly garbage, pandering to people with technophobia, in a computer game... I'm all ironied out.

Overall, everything is still a straight line and it gets more noticeable every time I play it. I mean, I'll play new ones if/when they make them, but I don't know if they'll generate the same enthusiasm for replay like they did originally.

TACKY

The multiplayer for ME3 was alright I guess. Could be fun, short-form so not necessarily a huge time investment. Bastard hard sometimes though. And tying it to the single-player war readiness thing was kind of annoying, but it does mean that I've got so many assets available that I don't need to do the small side missions any more.

But EA will pull the servers soon enough and you'll never be able to play it again, who knows, that may inadvertently pull the authentication servers and you won't be able to play the game at all. And I bet even after that, EA will still leave the ME trilogy available for purchase through their crappy Origin shop.

A SHORT AND DISAPPOINTING ENDING

That was it, you waited two and a half years for it. Enjoy.

"Game" Theory

First off, yes I'm still here for those of you who read this (hi Mum).

Second, why am I seeing Asian dating ads on my page?

Third, I'll preface this brief entry with the announcement that I am clearly insane, because I still play Marvel Heroes.

But this has led me to have an interesting thought about the nonsense of random drops and clickfests. Go back far enough and a "game" was not much more than a mildly amusing teaching tool. Well to some it was serious business and still is in some cases, but they were designed to teach a skill outside of the application of that skill. Like chess, it was designed to teach battle tactics, without the noise and bloodshed and pressure of a real battle situation.

There, victory could be earned. By out-thinking your opponent, or even just knowing them well enough to gauge their tactics, you could win. And that's about it. Of course these days there are tournaments with prizes and such, way back when it was created, maybe a display of skill meant a promotion, so there probably was a tangible reward for playing.

Now take the ARPG. For the most part, "rewards" are simply things that you can use in the game that enable you to keep playing, making your character more powerful or durable so that you can be better at the game and get more stuff. Except usually all that stuff is randomly assigned. Most frequently it's just equipment that has a random chance of dropping and has a bunch of randomly rolled affixes on it. And all it does is let you keep playing the game.

OK, fine, it's somewhat endless and mindless so you can use it as entertainment... which means it's not really rewarding you, as it is enticing you to keep playing, for whatever reason (money usually). This is nothing new or controversial, I'm hardly the first to say it. But if it isn't really rewarding play, then it's not really great entertainment. If it's not trying to teach a skill, it's not really a game.

If anything, you could suggest that because all things will eventually drop, that it rewards and/or teaches patience. I don't think something that teaches patience should be so fast-paced. I don't think that something trying to teach patience should induce RSI or Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

I get that the frustration it causes can be seen as an attempt to encourage patience. I don't think that you should get paid for it.


So yes, I'm still embittered and full of hate, but maybe I'll be trying to share more of it with you in the near future, aren't you excited? I had an idea a while back to do a more proper review of Mass Effect 3 and couple it with a sort of retrospective of the series, and the original idea was to do this around the first anniversary of its release. Then at the first anniversary of my first review. Then at the second anniversary of its release.

Well it's coming up on the second anniversary of my original review, so look forward to that being postponed as well.

Nightmares in 1080p

So I actually get to do a Halloween post, complaining mostly about the PAYDAY 2 Halloween weekend event. In short, it's BS. Overkill have decided that what gamers find scary is ridiculously overpowered enemies that are in the game just to piss off the people who paid money to play it. The Bulldozer enemy has been upgraded to a headless horseman with at least four times the health of the regular Bulldozer. Yay, just what we all wanted, even more BS in our "entertainment". They even added a special Halloween job called "Safe House Nightmare" because apparently bank robbers have nightmares about evil forces taking their hard-stolen money away. And floating baby face masks, because why not? In this job, the only enemies you face are Bulldozers. Lots of Bulldozers. I found it easier to try to avoid them than fight them, that's how BS they are.

Most of the youtube videos I've seen about PAYDAY 2 were from a couple of months ago, after which there seems to have been a game patch that made enemies do more damage, or armour less effective, because I've seen videos of Enforcers really tanking, and you can't do that now, you die too easily. So here's another developer who seems to think that when you're facing endless swarms of respawning enemies that outnumber you 50:1, the biggest problem is that the players don't die quickly enough. The other developer would be Gazillion, the makers of Marvel Heroes. At least those are two I've encountered recently, I'm sure there are more.

Basically, if you normally play PAYDAY 2, I'd recommend you avoid trying to grind for experience this weekend, it's more trouble than it's worth.

Backhand

So yet another post referring to PAYDAY 2 but this time it's totally the same. I just undid all of the "fixes" that were supposedly helping the game to run and it ran fine for a couple of hours. I'm convinced that not even the people making computers and software understand the problems, it's just some cult of "insider knowledge" and they're all huddling in candle pentagrams and chanting the OS system code out loud.

I did also forget to mention in my attempt to be helpful that though you can redistribute your points in each skill tree whenever you want, you don't get all of your money back, so experimentation can cost you. Or did I actually mention that?

And wow there are some weird ads showing up on this thing. I suppose I might have to do some kind of moderation for it to seem more in line with the theme (if any) of my blog. Have I mentioned that "blog" isn't even a word and I hate it along with many other things so it kind of gets lost in there with the rest I don't have time to focus on; and even the spell-checker doesn't like it.

Helping somewhat

With a thought to all the recent youtube videos I've watched recently that were about build ideas for PAYDAY 2, here is some of my own advice:

First of all, be sure you want to play it.

Second, if like me you encounter the random crashes and have followed all the forum listed advice for preventing it and find that they still occur, try this: lower your graphics settings. This seems to have helped me (at least so far) and it was much the same issue with Marvel Heroes, for some reason most, if not all of the crashes for PAYDAY 2 are C++ errors, and lowering the graphics settings made a difference. Other than making the textures look all blurry and ugly.

Third, unlike most of the videos I've watched, I've only played it after they altered the in-game descriptions of skills and weapons. Which means as far as build concerns go, you can get a much better idea of what a skill will do for well before you are even able to purchase it. While I wouldn't discourage experimentation such as I did, if you don't plan to play this obsessively for a few weeks you won't really have enough money to experiment with how different skills work together. So checking beforehand means you can plan around your play style in advance.

Third part 2: weapons are a little more difficult to plan around because while you can see the base weapon stats in the shop, you don't get any idea of what kind or how many mods can be applied to it, meaning that you can't really pick the most appropriate weapon ahead of time and save up for it. The most obvious clues you get are the stats such as "concealment" and "damage" as they will give you some idea of which build style they will fit with most. High concealment suggests they're good for a stealth/Ghost build (and the Ghost skill tree has skills affecting SMG so they're an immediate association). High damage weapons will most likely have a very poor concealment rating, meaning they are for going LOUD!

Third part 3: the above information about guns doesn't quite cover secondary weapons so much as primaries. All SMG are secondaries, and pistols can be quite powerful with a fairly good concealment rating. Though as above you can't get a great idea of what kind of mods can be applied. There are several basic types of mods though. There's a bunch of suppressors that have varying degrees of damage reduction mitigated by improved concealment or stability. Barrel extensions that improve damage at the cost of concealment. Extended magazines that reduce concealment. Generally a mod will either increase combat effectiveness or increase concealment, usually at the expense of the other.

Fourth and probably final: don't go nuts. Sure, there's no real consequence for failure, it is after all, a game. But you will avoid the ire of fellow players if you don't act like a retard. When you start out, don't go assuming that you can undertake a job on overkill difficulty and not die repeatedly and irritate your fellow gamers to no end. You'll find yourself kicked out of many lobbies if you try to reach beyond your grasp. Unless of course you already know someone who has played the game a while and is willing to help you level up faster by carrying you through harder missions. But stay away from "Pro" jobs while you're still a noob.

That is probably it for now. I'll likely only be playing PAYDAY 2 for a little while longer, then I guess I'm back to Marvel Heroes unless I find something else to play. I'm tempted to add an "advice" label but I'm not sure how many times I'd be using it. Maybe a future advice thingy for Marvel Heroes might be in order, they've apparently got a fair amount of marketing geared up for the release of the new Thor movie.

Retraction of retraction

Or recanting my recant. PAYDAY 2 is back to random crashes or loading screen crashes so I'm back to my original theory of game developers being incompetent at the one thing they are supposedly good at. They suck, and they wonder why people pirate their product.

Don't bother with it, it gets more full of BS the longer you play.

More pay... day... 2 (well, 3)

Just going to start with the reason these are separate posts instead of edits onto existing ones: because I have very little readership and I doubt I get many people coming back to see if I've added to my existing rants and stuff.

Something I forgot to include in the "what I don't like" about PAYDAY 2 was the purchasable assets for each job. Some of them are downright misleading, such as the "insider info" for the Bank Heist, which provides a blueprint with the location of the security room and vault. Except there are two potential locations for each, meaning that you are always given the same one of four different possible layouts. I learned quickly never to buy this. Another is the "expert driver" which prevents you from having to do an escape if the police are alerted. An escape is not a certainty either way, but with the expert driver you never have to do one. What I don't like about this is you are unable to designate an extraction point, which would be really useful on the Nightclub job, where one of the exit locations is in an alley accessible from within the club, making it a brilliant place for a stealth operation to depart. But you can't choose where the driver goes, meaning a full stealth infiltration of the club could leave you needing to exit through the front door, running past guards and civilians, not exactly a clean getaway. For that same job, there is the option of a "loot truck" that will pull up outside the manager's office window, allowing you to divest yourself of the loot without having to carry it all the way to the escape van. But you aren't told this in the asset menu, all it says is "loot truck" and tells you that it's an alternate way of retrieving the loot, no details.

But then again, I did just complete my very first solo stealth bank heist. It took over an hour, most of which was picking locks on safety deposit boxes, but it felt good at the end of it. There are more efficient ways to gain XP and money than this, but this way actually feels like an accomplishment. Make of that what you will.

Keep on gamin'.

PAYDAY2/Steam supplement

Apparently the way to get Steam to recognise the game data that you already have is to make sure to "delete local content" then copy the data to the "common" or "(username)" folder of the "SteamApps" folder (where username is your Steam account name, somewhat obvious I would have thought but here for the sake of clarity). Then you go into Steam and tell it to install that game, then it will find the data already there and reinstall. This has seemingly worked to (for the moment) prevent random crashes in PAYDAY 2 so thereby allowing me to continue to play it.

While I'm on the subject, if I gave a favourable impression of the game, let me be clear: PAYDAY 2 is really frustrating to play. In addition to the already mentioned issues, I've since been reminded that a lot of the game is complete BS. Cops can shoot through otherwise impenetrable objects, preventing you from returning fire. There is no real clear indication of how "concealment" affects anything outside of Casing Mode. The Enforcer, ostensibly the combat class only really fares better in combat when equipped with the heaviest armour and because of passive tier bonuses that increase health by up to 50% total, which can still be wiped away in seconds because enemies never miss. Just now, within five minutes of the first day of the "Rats" job, a Bulldozer appeared, which is again, complete BS, because there is no way an enemy that tough should show up that early on the lowest difficulty.

Stealth is really only viable if you've several people all geared for it and who are very high levels so that they have access to the best abilities. Otherwise you will end up relying on luck, and out of every 10 or so stealth attempts, one might be successful. This still applies to what are seemingly the jobs tailor made for stealth: Framing Frame and Firestarter. Both of which are quite well paying and clearly designed for stealth, yet so frequently end up in combat anyway. As I said before, this is a shooter with a potential for some stealth tacked on. I'd recommend serious thought before plunging yourself into the swirling pit of madness that is PAYDAY 2.

PAYDAY 2 - the sequel to a game I only played on a free weekend and didn't really like all that much (now with more pointed complaints)

So random crashes aside, which by the way when the suggestion for fixing a crashing game involves uninstalling the game and video drivers and supplementary software and disabling features of the launch system it was designed to run through, well that just isn't right and says that all this technobabbling nonsense we are relying on daily is really, well, unreliable.

Anyway. Issues, in reverse order of my normal reviews I'm starting with what I don't like. Bloated file size for one, apparently PAYDAY 2 takes up heaps of disk space because the developers are generously endowing us with assets that they aren't currently using but think they may want to some time in the future so can we just hang on to them for a while, as a favour? If you're saying I need to reinstall to fix your mistake, I had better not blow half of my monthly download quota and spend half a day doing so. Especially since Steam decided to go and make its game data immune to substitution - a recent need to reinstall Steam also deleted most of my game data and it seems that the games that survived will not be permitted to be copied from the remaining data. Computers suck. And they lie, Steam tells me that it's a 6GB download that takes up 20GB of disk space, go figure. Oh and it seems that the game may have been built on Mac and then ported to PC, because that's a great idea (something about .bundle files being a Mac thing that some person said on a forum post).

Infinite replay value means grinding for what you want from a random drop at the end of every heist, because letting the player get away with "millions" needs to be restricted for some reason so that they can't simply get what they want out of a game that they paid money for. The "offshore account" is insulting, sure you can spend it all getting the missions you want - because that part is random as well, of course, why would you want to be able to consistently choose from one of the very few available missions anyway - but otherwise it has no value, no purpose. You have spending cash with which you buy guns and apply mods (which are randomly attained from the end-heist-drop) and buy skills, because why not have two currencies for character improvement? (skill points and money). Offshore money would have been a reasonable way to acquire weapon mods and masks, but no, let's randomise.

About 90% of the time you will end up in combat. One of the things that made me actually buy and try PAYDAY 2 was the lure of being able to approach missions with stealth. In reality we're left with a stealth component tacked on to a first-person shooter. Even the stealth "class" Ghost has combat improving abilities. Every class is geared for combat, because the slightest little thing can turn your stealth run into a relentless police assault. And if you didn't gear or spec for combat, you're going to die. The Enforcer class is ostensibly the combat focused class, and even then it's mainly because they can get the heaviest armour, which they can only acquire but taking a particular skill, which is top tier, meaning that you can't get the heavy armour for quite some time. In fact you don't gain any armour until you reach a certain level. The levels required aren't all that high, but it does mean that you are seriously screwed as a noob unless you play with some really good or at least high level players.

A nitpick for the combat is that you are not provided with any notion of a gun's range, only its accuracy. I suppose the idea is that higher accuracy means you can hit targets further away and you're just missing them with poor accuracy guns. Except that effective range is actually a component of the game. Up close, you can kill someone in one hit with a shotgun blast, especially to the head. Go a short distance away and it can take three or four headshots with a shotgun to get a kill. So having some kind of range indicator would have been nice. And as a corollary to the class combat system, it mainly associates different classes with different weapon types. There are a few skills that give a general buff, but Mastermind is pistol focused, Enforcer shotgun, Technician rifles and Ghost sub-machine guns (with a general buff to "silenced" weapons).

Armour gives a massive speed reduction the heavier you go, but on higher difficulties you're still going to die in a few hits. A beat cop with a pistol took out my heavy armour in one shot on overkill difficulty. And they never miss, I hate that games like this sabotage the player so heavily, first by greatly outnumbering us, then by making enemy skill so proficient that there is no learning curve. They either kill you in a few hits, or kill you in one hit. The best you can aim for is to shoot them before they shoot you, that's the only margin you're given. So you can't move very fast and you can't take many hits and they still expect you to sit in one place guarding a damn drill while you wait for it to get you into the vault where you still have to bag the loot and then get it to the escape van without dying.

And why does everyone always bang on about the graphics. I'd make this a separate post but I'd probably never get around to writing it but when I was a kid we had an Atari 2600, and today I would still play Joust or Pitfall because they were awesome. One of my favourite games of all time is X-COM: UFO Defense (or UFO: Enemy Unknown in some parts of the world, and I think it's a way better title) and people today would probably puke at the sight of it, because they're so used to CGI rendering in movies and complain if a game doesn't have high resolution textures. What about the game part of this that somehow escapes your attention? Early 3D games do tend to look rather ugly compared to recent ones but I've seen people complain about Mass Effect 3 looking like it came out in 2011. It's running on an engine that came out in 2007, retard, most of these games are built to run on consoles that are using fixed hardware from the time of their manufacture, get over the graphics already and pay attention to the game in video game. System Shock 2 is not pleasant to look at by today's standards but it is one of the best games of all time, and you'd be missing out on that if you simply turned away after glancing at some screenshots.

Anyway. You know what I do like about this game. It's fun. I won't be playing it for the next week or so because I don't want to use up all my download quota to reinstall it, but aside from that... It is exemplary of all the design issues endemic to the current mode of thinking about video game development; but when you successfully escape after clearing out a bank vault, it feels good. It feels like an actual accomplishment. We're Pavlov's dogs in this instance, drooling at the mere thought of an intangible reward related to whatever conditioned behaviours we willingly entangle ourselves in to distract ourselves from the vast mind-numbingly pointless existence we have been thrust into without our consent and we'd do anything to turn off awareness of abstract concepts just to escape the creeping madness in our consciousness.

Or at least that's why I play games, what's your excuse?

Getting paid

I've been playing PAYDAY 2 a lot these last couple of weeks, and I find myself frustrated at an industry that can't seem to couple enjoyment with competence - a quick search reveals that I'm far from the only person experiencing persistent random crashes and I have to wonder if anyone in the gaming industry really knows what they're doing. Or is it just that the games that are more fun to play come from smaller developers who don't have the resources to ensure their product functions properly?

In short, PAYDAY 2 is quite a lot of fun when it actually works, which is not very often. Last night I played for four or five hours without a crash, today I can't seem to last much past half an hour before I'm looking at the desktop yet again.

Nostalgia

So the video game industry has looked to Hollywood in order to find their direction. And that direction is "backwards". A couple of re-releases have appeared this year in promotion of remakes. Rise of the Triad got the treatment. Shadow Warrior has just come out following its re-release. Now there is promotion of a remake of Thief: The Dark Project cleverly titled Thief. Oh and Flashback is getting the treatment too. Thief and Flashback I can kind of deal with, even though they're unnecessary. It might be good to see a good platformer and a real stealth game (don't think about Dishonored [sic]) to open up the landscape away from endless first- and third-person action shooters. But RotT and Shadow Warrior? Do we really need these throwbacks. I know that a large portion of the gaming community is getting older, sure, but when everything has been going Modern Warfare and Gears of War do people really want old-school (not very old, but anyway) shooters a la Doom?

Ah, what do I know? Maybe kids will embrace the silliness and simplicity of simple run & gun gaming. I'm unqualified to accurately predict human behavioural patterns.

Going nowhere

I've been a while away from here, wasting my money, time and life plugging away at Marvel Heroes of which I must now rescind any hint of a recommendation that you play it, because it has been endlessly crashing with no fixes or help from the developers. So fuck them, fuck that stupid pile of coding errors they call a game and I really suggest you avoid not only that game but anything developed by Gazillion. They're dedicated, yes, but incompetent and nothing really makes up for that. Technically the game is free, but I have spent money on it and I think it reasonable to expect a functioning product in exchange for currency, they have not delivered.

Otherwise carry on, nothing to see here.

Okay, they are dedicated, and not everyone is having my problems playing the game, but still, I was mad and wanted to tell the internet so.

Alright, might have sorted out my problem with Marvel Heroes constantly crashing, so neat. But still, they push out patches way too quickly and then have to address additional problems caused by that so they take ages to get around the problems that have been around for a while.

Marvel at it

So, Marvel Heroes.

Not heaps to the story of this one, save that they went with their go-to guy Doctor Doom as the main villain. Not that there aren't plenty of other villains along the way. Free-to-play, so most of my complaints should be offset by the fact that not only did I not pay for it, but the developer is still working on the game. Seems to me that there are plenty of people paying for characters and costumes. Characters are unlocked with rare item drops, so you could effectively play the game totally free. Plus, this game does right what DC Universe Online got wrong - namely, you play as the famous (some not so famous) heroes from the comics.

Gameplay - much like Diablo, but with Wolverine and The Punisher. Isometric view and randomised dungeons crawling with enemies and the occasional boss enemy. Loot grinding is the name of the game here. Random maps, random loot, level up and keep going. Most games try to hide the fact that you're really doing a simple repetitive task, this one can't hide it. Click, click, click. Over and over. Just keep clicking. Then click some more. Story mode is fairly short and straight forward, that's where the repetition comes in - with daily challenges and of course levelling up your other characters. Or if you really really want to, you can reset the story and play it again.

The microtransactions I can forgive - free-to-play after all - it's that the in game currency is so hard to come by. You can sell your loot, obviously, but in order for the vendors and crafters to have better stuff available you need to donate you gear to them in order to level them up. That takes a loooooooooooong time. I've racked up over 50 hours playtime, and I've got the crafting vendor to rank 10 (of 20). Other vendors nowhere near that high, and the most suckiest thing about it, is that the crafters require components and credits and they demand a HUGE PILE OF MONEY just to put a fairly ineffective low grade randomised buff to your costume. That's just ridiculous - play the game and you'll soon see what I mean. 150000 credits for a grade 4 affix. Even the 25000 needed for a grade 3 is too much of an ask, because instead of selling your loot, you'll need to donate it in order to have access to the upgrades.

What I liked: I like the simple clicking gameplay - provided I'm in the right mood. The character personalities are fleshed out with random banter based on other nearby characters, or combat taunts and whatnot.

What I didn't like: In game currency, just so poorly handled. Maybe they'll fix it, since they seem to be interested in feedback. They are also apparently into updating the balance issues you come across while playing. They've already patched a few times and it's only been out for a few weeks. Also, the free-to-play model only has a few characters to select from at the start - and whichever one you pick, that will be your only character for a while. I did receive a new character token fairly early on, but I'm not sure if that's the standard or not. At least Daredevil was one of the free characters, the others were not some of my favourites (I'm looking at you, Hawkeye).

Play or not, I don't think I'm that persuasive a writer. If you try it free, at least you've only spent time instead of money. Unless you like it, then you can go nuts if you want.