Steam Early Access

So I have a new graphics card underway, and thanks to a friend of mine, my pc has sound once more, so hopefully more game reviews will be coming down the line in the future.  For now I'd like to talk about something that has cropped up here and there, and that has been discussed by much better writers then I.  The Steam Early access model that cropped up a few months ago and is now peppering the entire service with dozens upon dozens of games for sale.

For a quick rundown, generally when you buy a game, your buying the full game, your aware of what's supposed to be included in it, and you can roughly guess the game will be in working order (runs fine, no major issues etc).  Early access is another way of saying paid beta/alpha access for a game.  If a game is in early access, it is telling you it's not done yet, may not have most or even alot of the planned features in place yet and is currently working on new builds to improve the game.  Some of them will offer a reduced price for the game, or even give you special bonuses for essentially pre-ordering the game (which in of itself could be another topic to discuss).  When you select an early access game, you get a small blurb from the developer about what they want to accomplish, a list of recent updates and sometimes planned updates.  Anything else is generally left up to the developers or can only be seen once you've purchased the game (this includes lists of planned features and such)

So I do own an early access title (Dungeons of the Endless, it's a rogue like/tower defense game, so hooray for hitting two of my favorite genres).  I think the system has merit, in that it can get people involved early on in the process of seeing a game, and even having a chance to talk about, discuss and help shape a game.  So far the updates have been decent for this title, and they give a good amount of information on what is changing and what is planned.  This gives me, the early tester/backer, good information to know what is coming, and if I was to recommend the game to other people, I could use this information to persuade them to give it a shot.  However, there are other games that do not display such information, the updates are sporadic and not very detailed, and they do not have a list of what is planned vs what is currently in the game.  Total biscuit, a very popular you tube reviewer does a better job then I could talking about some of these games, found here Link .  I've managed to avoid any of the games with these pitfals, but you never know if I will run into one in the future, distracted by shiny things and all that.

So there is alot more to discuss about this, but I wanted to keep this a bit brief for now, and come back to it in a few weeks to see what other people think, if they know of any games in early access worth mentioning, and what your general opinion is about this.

New design is in progress, upcoming games, topics for discussion

So as you can tell by taking a look, I took a quick stab at changing the site around a bit (my girlfriend helped with the color choices, as I have no artistic taste or talent whatsoever).  So while this is going on, time to list out a few things coming up

• I'm going to be playing in a Dresden Files Fate RPG soon, and once I have a few sessions under my belt, I'll write up my thoughts on the system
• I've got a few steam reviews I want to toss up, some older games and such I'd like to talk about.
• Going to add a few board game reviews, as the mechanics behind them are quite interesting.
• Going to try adding in a weekly kickstarter look, to direct people to projects I believe are fun.  If anyone has any they'd like me to share, let me know.

That's about it for now, just letting people know this blog is alive and kicking.

New site Design

Just a quick heads up.  Since the basic design of this hasn't changed since I started, I'm going to attempt to give it quick make over, make it easier to read, more pleasing to the eye etc.

Final Fantasy XIV - A new start

So many moons ago, I had given the beta of Final Fantasy XIV a shot.  To put it rather bluntly, the game then was horrible.  The races were merely re-skins of Final Fantasy XI races, the classes were not much better, and quests were so horrible to even attempt to get that after playing for only 30 minutes, I uninstalled the game and never looked back.  I did see it pop up once in awhile about how it had gone through a few dev teams, that they were trying to remake the game, and how eventually they scrapped the whole thing and started over.  This caught my attention, as it's rare for a game developer to do this for any title, let alone an entire MMO.  So i followed the new dev cycle, tried the beta, and have actually been playing the game since it came out.  Since I'm known among my friends as someone who will play almost anything, I believe I should explain whats new and improved.

So the aesthetics of the game seem much improved.  The maps and towns are bustling and full of various npcs and monsters going about their business.  The races have also been redone a bit.  They are still similar to Final Fantasy XI's races, but with new genders added, model changes and the introduction of multiple variants.  These variants give you more height and appearance options, along with different starting stats for each subset of a race.   The classes have also been redone, moving into four sets of classes.  You have disciples of the Land, Disciples of the Hand, Disciples of War and Disciples of Magic.  These break down into gathering classes, crafting classes, combat classes and magic classes (a marauder is a war discipline, while a summoner is one of magic).  Every character can be any class, and you can switch them at anytime just by changing your main weapon.  So you can be walking around with an axe, happily it about as a marauder, and notice someone is in need of healing.  Swap out a staff and suddenly your a healer.  Throw on a sword and shield and then your tanking as a gladiator.  Along with these, you can eventually earns jobs, which are like advanced classes.  They offer more options and sit atop of other classes, enhancing key features of those classes.  So a marauder is an axe wielding tank, while the job of warrior improves your abilities and offers new features to help tank and absorb damage.  You also have an armory to store 25 of each kind of equipment (helm, armor, main off etc) so you can carry various sets of gear with you.  You also have a room which allows you to store more items, sell them and hold special gear you earn from quests and events.

Now onto the meat and potatoes.  For PvP, there is not much there yet.  The last content patch added in a 4v4 arena style combat, and so far that is all there is in terms of PvP.  So if you want a rich PvP centric game, this is not going to be for you.  If you want a good PvE experience though, you'll find things to like in Final Fantasy XIV.  You have your basic quests you find scattered throughout the world, along with a main storyline quest which will reward you with decent gear, and makes sure you travel along the world.  Along the way you can also do dungeons, guildhests, fates and levequests.  Dungeons are common place, and range from quick and easy to challenging and drawn out.  The game has a built in duty finder for these, which means you can select multiple dungeons to queue for, and it will assemble a team for you.  The bosses range from simple mechanics (tank and spank) to more complex (protect pillars in the room so you can use them to hide from the bosses attacks).  Guildhests are like mini dungeons or challenges.  They usually center around a certain theme, and seem geared towards preparing you for more advanced mechanics coming in the dungeons ahead.  Fates are like Guild Wars 2 events around the world.  They will spawn on maps, and require you to defend a location, kill a big enemy, escort someone etc.  These will give you gold, exp and seals for your company.  At a certain level you join a grand company, and the seals you earn during the game allow you to buy gear, mounts and other items from the company vendors.  Levequests are the last bit of leveling you can use.  You find levequest vendors around the world, and can opt to perform quests for them.  They offer a variety of them to do, usually 6 or more per area, and you can repeat them as much as you want.  You can also get these quests for the various crafting and gathering jobs, to help you level those faster.

I will say I've been enjoying what they have done so far.  They just added in guild houses and are working on player housing next.  The dungeons I've done have been fun, and I just hit max level, so now I can begin to do hard mode dungeons and raids.  The next big patch is coming, and they seem to be keeping pace with content coming out.  So unless WildStar or ESO blows me out of the water, I may have found a home in Final Fantasy XIV for the time being.

Total Con - A retrospective

So this weekend, I ended up attending four days of a local Massachusetts game convention called Total Confusion (Link).  It's a long running (this was the 28th year) game convention focusing on board games, miniatures and table top/rpg games.  I figured since this was my first time, and it was a bit different from the other conventions I have been to in the past, a small review/write up might be in order.  If anyone reading this has been to the con as well, feel free to correct anything I may say or agree/disagree with me on some of the finer points.

So the convention runs four days total in a hotel in Mansfield Mass.  It has your standard registration options (pre-registering will be cheaper, and you can get a pass for four days or for each day, depending on how long you plan to be there).  Once your registered, this is where it gets a bit different then other cons I have been too.  At the major cons I go to (PAX and Anime Boston) once your registered you go into the con, and can participate in any panel, game or event going on, as long as you arrive early enough to get into the line for said event.  At TotalCon, you are able to be in the free game room, panels and other places as much as you want.  IF you want to play a scheduled game, be it card, miniature, board or rpg you need a ticket.  If you purchase an actual ticket for an event (say pathfinder at 3:00 pm on a Friday) you are guaranteed to get into the game.  If you want to play a board game at a given time, you can get a board game ticket for a certain block of time, and if you arrive and there is space in the game, you can play.  Finally there are generic tickets, which can get you into anything, but are last in the order.  So if you show up to a game with a generic ticket and an actual ticket holder shows up, you will have to give up your seat at the table.  Unfortunately for myself and my friends, we were not aware you could pre-register for the events, so we were unable to get into some of the games we wanted to try.  We did end up purchasing a few tickets for games though, along with a few generics.  It should also be noted, that generics can be returned for your money back, event tickets cannot be returned, unless the game does not run for any reason.

So we ended up arriving Thursday night, and looked around the con, getting our bearings and seeing what was going on.  The free game room was mixed with the regular board game and young gamers (games meant for children).  The vendor hall was different then others I've been too.  It was all local, small game stores, with very good selections and very knowledgeable staff.  I ended up purchasing various games from the different vendors, including some nice jewelry for my girlfriend (It was a dice bracelet made with tiny dice.  It can be found at Link ).  There was also a gamer cupcake bakery located outside the vendor hall.  The bacon maple cupcake was divine.  The con staff I ran into were all nice and knowledgeable, with a few small problems with some of the games encountered (mostly double booking tables, games running late and missing others, along with some games not having locations until the last minute so we had to look around to find where our game was being played).  Not sure why this happened a few times, but I'm guessing from the number of people there this year it may have been a new found growing pain.

I ended up playing quite a few games.  I joined the PathFinder society, played the Dr Who RPG, tried out some Call of Cthulhu.  Played some board games, including Zpocolypse and Triasic Terror (a copy of which now adorns my game shelf).  There were also other card games and such I played, but as can happen it blends together a bit, so it can be hard to say what ones I ended up playing overall.  One of the nice surprises of the games were the prize tickets.  Either by winning or being voted best gamer at the table, you could win purple prize tickets, which could be redeemed for dice, board games, shirts and various other nick knacks at the con.  It was a nice surprise, and definitely made me want to plan out my gaming session for next year.

I did have a few gripes though.  The ticket thing did throw me for a loop, and being unable to redeem specific event tickets was a bit of a downer, since due to games running late or late food, I missed a few games I wanted to try.  Now that I've been to the con, I've got a much better handle of how it works, but for new people just getting started there, it can be a bit daunting.  Also the board game tickets was a bit weird.  Today actually we signed up for a game, and were unable to play it because the tickers were for any board game at a given time.  We did wind up playing a cool game called Chroma Cubes (Link), so it worked out in the end, but I worry some people may purchase board game tickets for a group and be unable to play together.  Overall I ended up having a ton of fun here, and look forward to going again next year.

Defender's quest Valley of the Forgotten

So we have another game down on the steam Challenge, as we take a look at Defender's quest, Valley of the Forgotten (Link).  I picked this up recently since it was on sale, and I had a few steam bucks left over from selling off some trading cards.  So let'd dive in, shall we?

Defenders is a tower defense/rpg hybrid.  This entails that your towers are actually characters, and they have the ability to level up.  Each time they level, their stats increase and you can allocate a point to one of their skills.  These range from passive skills (more speed, range etc) or improving/granting them new attacks.  The one difference is your main character, the Librarian.  She can improve her spells only (at least to where I have gotten to in the game).  Her spells use psi points, which is your main resource in the game.  Psi points is what lets you place down troops on the field, cast spells, and boost troops on the field.  Boost is like upgrading towers in other games.  This will grant the boosted unit more abilities, increased stats and more health.  Along with this you collect scrap after battles, which your out of battle currency.  With this you can buy more troops to summon, and also buy equipment for them as well.  Each unit uses one type of armor and one type of weapon.  The final component is each level has multiple difficulties.  If you perfect a level on a certain difficulty, you earn extra scrap or even special items.

Overall the game has been quite fun.  The basic levels are easy enough to get through, while the higher difficulties present enough of a challenge to be fun, but not so bad as to only be winnable via one certain combination of troops (looking at you, crystal defenders).  Honestly, I'd say go get a copy of the game, the story is quite fun too.

Broken age

So now what alot of people (read 2) have been waiting for.  My review of Broken Age, the new adventure game released by double fine (Link).  Be forewarned, there may be some spoilers here, and I was also a kickstarter backer, hence why I was able to play it early.  There will be a second part coming eventually, and when it does I'll probably do another quick review update here.  So, let's dive right in shall we?

So the game involves two seperate characters, Shay and Vella.  They are played separately and you can play one through the end without playing the other until you have to.  It's an adventure game like the old school monkey island, or any of the new TellTale games, whereupon by talking to other characters, gathering items and solving puzzles your able to advance the plot.  Right off the bat, the graphics really impressed me.  They seem to be almost cutout pieces, but not quite, it's odd.  The music is also subtle and really helps with the mood, while the voice acting is superb.  Of course, the main two points of any adventure game is of course the story, and the puzzles.  We'll tackle the puzzles first.

One of the problems with alot of adventure games is they really on what has sometimes been called monkey island logic.  This is where you have a key, and of course it should open the door, but instead you need to trade the key for a bottle of spot remover, which removes a spot on the wall and lets you in.  This is not necessarily a bad thing for most adventure games,  but it can be very frustrating where it can turn into try everything on everything and see what sticks.  This game avoids that, with every interaction and decision making almost complete sense.  They even do a good job of letting you know what you can interact with, by changing the mouse cursor around.  Inventory is also handled nicely, by having a small area you can mouse down to, open it up and go with it.  You can't do multiple things with items (as in look, push pull etc) but this game doesn't need that.  It works with what it has, and does it well.

So onto the story.  This is where I may catch some flak, as it has to do with the kickstarter as well.  So the game is currently half done, with the second act coming later in the year.  So I had planned to only play a little bit of the game to review, but ended up beating the entire game in about four hours.  So the story for the four hours was quite enjoyable, and trust me, the ending will make you want the next act as soon as possible.  My concern is that the next act will be just as long as the first, and that would make an 8 hour game.  Of course, I have no doubt it will be a very enjoyable 8 hour game, but with the sheer amount of money they made from the kickstarter, the preorders and everything else, it almost seems like it will be too short of a game for all the hype.  Of course I may be wrong, and the second act will be so amazing I won't care too much about the time spent.  We're just going to have to wait and see.

The Banner Saga

So the next game on the steam challenge I've set myself upon is one I backed quite some time ago, The Banner Saga (Link) . So keep that in mind while reading this, I backed this game, and actually put in a little more then the hour I've been doing so far for these games.  So let's get into the nitty gritty of this title shall we?  Please note, there will be some mild spoilers, so keep that in mind.

The game follows a group of vikings, living in a world where the sun never moves, it's almost always perpetual winter and these large, golem like creatures called the Dredge are waging war on everyone.  You begin the game controlling a large caravan of Vurl (giants) and humans as they are leading a caravan to the Vurl capital (believe it's that) to cement a full treaty between the races.  After playing as this group a bit, you move over to Rook and his town.  Now, this game was made by former BioWare members, and this is where it begins to show.  You begin to have to make choices, such as what to defend, how to react and actions you take between combat.  This will affect your supplies, party members and your renown.  I actually lost a party member at the beginning of the game due to a choice I made.  This will more then likely lead to the game being able to be played multiple times through, as your choices do seem to have consequences.

Now to combat.  It uses a grid based system where enemies and allies take turns.  It always goes ally, enemy, even if there are more allies then enemies, or vice a versa.  Every character can move, rest, use a special ability, or attack if something is in range.  When attacking, you can choose to damage armor, or strength.  Armor will help shield you from damage, while strength is not only your health, but how much damage you do with hits.  So by lowering an enemies strength, you not only kill them quicker, but reduce their combat effectiveness.  Along with this you have a special stat called willpower, which can be used to move further, hit harder. and is also used for your special abilities.  As you kill enemies, you earn renown, which is your currency.  It can be used to buy items, supplies for your caravan, and also to promote your troops.  Once a hero has killed x number of enemies, they can be promoted, which increases their stats and special ability.

So with the time I've put in so far, I'm definitely interested in continuing to play this game.  The story so far has me intrigued, combat is nice, and the music is excellent.  I'd recommend picking up this game if your a fan of BioWare games at all.

Deadly 30

So this time on the steam challenge, we have the zombie survival shooter game, Deadly 30 ( Link).  This is going to be one of many zombie style games I'm going to try, as I am a sucker for most anything zombie like in nature.  So let's get down to the meat and potatoes of this review shall we?

The game involves three soldiers in World War 2, trapped by a horde of undead monsters that seeks to kill them.  You begin the game as a rough and tough America soldier with an assault rifle.  Along the way, you have the chance to find and add to your team, a female German soldier with a shotgun and frying pan, and a Russian soldier with a bolt action rifle, and a combat knife.  You have the ability to switch between all three of your troops at any given time, and when not in control, the others will follow suit and kill anything that gets close.  You also have a home base, which you can upgrade, put defenses around, and stay in during the night.  This brings us to the day/night cycle the game uses.  During the day, the zombie hordes are much less, so your able to scavenge for scrap and ammo to help survive the night, where huge waves of them will begin to assault you.  As the name suggests, the goal is to survive for 30 nights, each day adding new types of zombies and increasing what comes at you.  You can also gain levels during the game, which gives you the option of acquiring more powerful weapons, armor and turrets for your base.

So not going to lie here, this almost seems like it should be a flash game that you'd find on NewGrounds or Armor Games.  It's simple enough to get interested, but doesn't seem to progress much beyond trying to get better items to defend yourself with.  Also your AI partners don't seem to interested in defending key positions, seeming to just wander around the base a bit and shooting if things get close.  Honestly, this game wasn't too bad for the price I paid, but if it was a bit more expensive I'd probably steer clear of it.

Valdis Story, Abyssal City

Here we are, a few days after the holidays and some gaming has been done.  Here we are with another steam challenge down, Valid Story, Abyssal City ( Link).  So this is a metroid style castlevania esc game, where you traverse a city, collecting upgrades, defeating enemies, leveling up and exploring the game.  As you find new items, spells and abilities, you get the ability to unlock new, and rediscover older parts of the game again and acquire even more items and abilities.  With an hour into the game, I've already fought three bosses and learned three types of magic.  It seems like there is a crafting/trading system in the game, but I've only just gotten to the vendors that handle this and so far have been unable to do much with them.  I'm hoping they provide some more worthwhile options in terms of managing your gear and abilities.  The game also has a stat/skill system, where you can build and customize your toon to your playstyle.  If you want to go heavy hitter or magic user, this is how you do it.  It also seems to have a ranking system for bosses, giving you bonus HP based upon how long it takes you to fight the boss, damage taken and items used.

I will say, the controls seemed a bit...too fluid for me if that makes any sense.  I've already had to do some time based jumping puzzles, and it almost seems like my toon moves around a bit too much when trying to make the precise jumps.  It's also odd that on some walls I seem to be able to double jump from fine, but then another only certain spots seem able to let me do so.  Not a game breaker at all, just something I noticed.

I'm hoping to have some more reviews up soon, talk about some board games I got to play, and even put up my list of games to play and see if there are any in particular people want to see played.  As always, thanks for reading.