Continue reading The digital wilderness

The digital wilderness originally appeared on Massively on Sat, 29 Nov 2008 10:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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We here at That VideoGame Blog aim to bring you game reviews as quickly and succinctly as possible to help you make informed choices as consumers and players of gamers. Unfortunately, the American/UK postal services couldn’t care less, which is why for the last two or so weeks our coveted review copy of Far Cry 2 has been floating around somewhere in the nothingness of space. Well, three weeks, two irate phone calls and one hefty customs charge later here we have it!

“A living thing seeks above all to discharge its strength — life itself is will to power. Nothing else matters.”

Any game that wants to get off on the right foot with me need only do one thing, quote Friedrich Nietzsche. This little gem of 19th century wisdom sets up the world of Far Cry 2. This is world held up by a shoestring, where the line between man and beast is a question of opposable thumbs and nothing more.

The protagonist, whose particular face and name you’ll select quite redundantly from a portfolio of available characters before starting, is launched headfirst into this world of competing amoral wills. And as he rolls into the heart of the game world for the first time, the tension is undeniable. However, no sooner are you introduced to the game environment and its competing factions than you are struck down by malaria.

From your bed, and through the lens of your malaria induced fever, you have you first meeting with “The Jackal”, the notorious arms dealer come entrepreneur perpetuating the ongoing conflict by arming both sides – the very man you’re sent here to kill. Helplessly, you look on as he gloats and asserts that he, like all good villains, will never be beaten.

You’ll spend the rest of the game, hiring yourself out to both factions and working your way back to that optimum position.

It is obvious that what Ubisoft wanted to create in Far Cry 2 was a pure wilderness. Untamed, brutal and unforgiving. Yet beautiful and poetic. Furthermore, you’re an alien in this world and it is obvious that it doesn’t want you. Whether the malaria, aggressive militia, labyrinth of the jungle or hot sun bearing down, every part of this environment – from the microscopic through to the cosmic – wants to see the end of you.

In any open world game, where each step of the player cannot be scripted or predicted, there is the challenge of how to make that journey from A to B challenging and interesting. Far Cry 2’s answer to that problem is, inexplicably, to make everybody hate your guts. When traveling from one point on the map to another you can almost guarantee that you’ll bump into an outpost, patrol or just a passerby who happens to want you dead. This is probably the most frustrating element of Far Cry 2, that at any moment, anyone who even catches a glance of the protagonist will open fire, regardless of whether they could have realistically identified him or not. Though as the game progresses, enemies learn to be fearful of the protagonist, this unwarranted anarchy early on completely kills the tension established in the first few minutes.

A further let down lies within the game’s soundtrack. Un-dynamic and un-engaging, the pat of hand drums and other generic clichéd examples of traditional sub-Saharan music. This is a great shame considering the wonderful rhythmic complexity and potential inherent in that style of music. The voice acting, while fit for purpose, is also equally flat and unrealized – with characters meeting their own particular social stereotype and little more.

While each random encounter may feel completely arbitrary the diversity and intensity of combat more than makes up for it. The smallest of impromptu skirmishes can quickly evolve into Armageddon. More often than not however, it is the environment that creates opportunities for entertainment rather than the sluggish and sometimes idiotic AI. That said, the ability of the game to surprise the player whilst still giving them room to riff and improvise is invaluable and provides that for the enterprising player willing to experiment, combat will never get boring.

Far Cry 2 is so much like one of the roughly cut diamonds around which the currency of the game world revolves. Beautifully drawn, from rugged mountain top to river basin, yet periodically scarred by shanty towns and militia outposts, the environment is a sight to behold. The map manages to cram about 1,000,000 square kilometers of real world Africa into about 50 of game territory.

Throughout the game there is this running theme of powerlessness. No matter how deep the protagonist seems to embed themselves in the conflict, he is never able to do anything more than observe, clambering through trying to find his mark. This is worked deeply into the game mechanics, at any moment malaria may overcome you, a gun may jam, fire from a Molotov cocktail may catch the wind and run rings around your position. These random elements are intensely frustrating, and especially so when they break the different between surviving a particular encounter or not. However, they balance the combat and will compel the player to strategize ahead of attacks, make the most of cover, survey exit routs and create contingency plans.

Finding a foothold of power in this wilderness is an ongoing challenge. As the game progresses and the main character obtains better equipment, safe houses and allies he finds his own will to power asserting itself on the environment. The friends made throughout the experience offer another compelling dimension to the game. They will give you missions and often come to yours aid should you have to take one for the team out in the field. On numerous occasions, however, you’ll find their fate in your hands. Whether you do the honorable and spare them or let the brutality of the world get the better of you, you will be instrumental in how the story unfolds.

Far Cry 2 also comes with the obligatory online modes. Aside from a versatile map creator, which will keep the more creative player busy, the online mode features the standard fare of deathmatch, team deathmatch, capture the flag (or in this case, diamonds) etc. Online combat feels somewhat sluggish by comparison to offline combat, however there is an amount of depth to character customisation which should provide at least a few more hours of play beyond the offline experience. The main point to be made about the online mode is that it does feel somewhat redundant when compared to the overwhelming depth of Far Cry 2 proper, which contains enough bang per buck to give anyone their fill.

Picture perfect and brutal, Far Cry 2’s take on Africa as a gaming world is, if nothing else, unique. Luckily for the game it is so much more. And while at times the nature of this open world may make the conflicts and challenges faced somewhat contrived, there is more than enough to keep players involved and engaged. Ironically, there is so much that this game can create out of nothing that at times it is hard to not get distracted in the vicious wilderness of Far Cry 2.

+

• The wilderness of Africa is captured beautifully, the gameworld is truly beautiful to look at and explore. Map editor will keep the creative mind busy for quite some time.
• Wide selection of weapons allows for plenty of variety in gunplay (and more coming via DLC)
• Heavily talked about fire element works as advertised

-

• Poor enemy AI (can see you and hit you with insane accuracy through bushes etc)
• Horrible voice acting (you’ll shake your head in utter disbelief most of the time)
• Mostly very repetitive (spend 10 minutes driving, get a mission, spend another 10 minutes driving to mission location, kill 5-10 bad guys, repeat.)

Tabula Rasa hosts another server war originally appeared on Massively on Tue, 11 Nov 2008 09:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Some of you may remember the NintendoNow Blogspot site, where three and a half years ago RMC humbly began his journey bringing you all the most comprehensive Big N news amalgamation anywhere else on the web. Then 3 years ago, the site and podcast were rebranded as GoNintendo, becoming a standalone site and community, free from the limitations of Blogger. Shortly thereafter, I became involved with the community side of things, offering up a few image designs here and there, eventually taking on a moderator role in the dungeons of the messageboards, and offering RMC what technical experience I could.

Ever since becoming staff–especially within the community context–it’s been my desire to really evolve the experience and improve it where and when we could. Today marks the third iteration of evolutionary milestones, almost three years our anniversary. And it is obviously a very large step.

Why? Well, a number of reasons, the not the least of which is the desire to ditch Wordpress, which for our veterans needs no explanation. The technology just isn’t designed or optimised to handle the volume of traffic you all represent, and even early on in GN’s life caused major site outages and crashes. Bad news for everyone.

Second, all the stories posted each day can be a lot to digest, even for avid readers. Seeing only ten stories per page becomes more of a chore than Nintendo news should be, especially when you have to click through at least 15 pages of it per day, maybe more if you stop by several times per day.

Third, and this has been a major pain point for me, is the incompatible technologies of Wordpress and phpBB, requiring TWO registrations from visitors who want to fully participate in the site through story comments and messageboard discussions. This dual citizenship was confusing to many, and limited the integrated features that can make a vivid group like Nintendo fans really flourish.

Plus, it’s no secret that our comments section can at times be a wilderness, a hive of scum and villainy, where all manner of user-generated content can be found… and unlike Mario Paint, the content isn’t always charming. Wordpress doesn’t really have a feasible system for comment moderation, but now we can employ a whole team of people to help keep a sense of order and everything running smoothly in commentland.

I could go on, but in the (already hypocritical) spirit of brevity, I’ll cut to the chase. Nine months ago, I began conceiving a solution to all these things, and with the advice and diligence of our resident programming and tech mastermind, T27duck, began developing a brand new system from the ground up to surpass anything our previous site iterations could offer. So here it is: GNV3.

To bullet point some of the major new features:

• New index layout: A listing of dozens and dozens of stories–not just 10 at a time, fully organised for your consumption. The ads are also more intentionally placed, versus the random and sloppy appearance they have now.
• Integrated site login: comments and messageboards require one registration and one login.
• New comment system: builds on the phpBB messageboard technology, allowing avatars, quoting, BBCode formatting, contact/community info per user, etc.; previous comments are archived for posterity.
• Podcast integration: The site automatically updates itself when a new webisode is posted, and is playable on the index or in a popup player.
• Live stream/Twitter: We can enable special “boxes” on the index for events like the Live stream or Twitter, when appropriate. They will always appear at the top of the page for maximum access, and will disappear into the shadows when the events are over.
• Featured stories: we can now display custom images to represent the top-top stories, or special promotions, which cycle and link to their respective stories. “On This Day” is accessible as a banner at all times, the last in the rotation.
• Cross-browser compatibility: IE6 sucks, we all know it, but some people (have to) use it anyway. The site works just fine with it. Newer browsers will yield better results and a more complete experience, but everyone should be able to participate.
• Dual site format: So we’re pretty sure some people will want to hang me by the delicates for changing our beloved site so radically, and for all of you I present Blog View (located in the upper left-hand corner of the site). It’s as close to the GoNintendo of today as we can give you. But seriously, “Standard View” is way better
• Plus lots more little touches here and there to make life better or easier. You’ll have to explore a bit to get them all.

So here we are. A new/improved GoNintendo, and hopefully one people can appreciate on whole new levels. Hundreds and hundreds of man-hours were spent developing, testing, re-testing, and tweaking this new site between myself, T27duck, and our team of private beta users from within the community (remember that browser poll not too long ago?).

It’s not the end of development; we do have some tweaks and improvements to roll out in the near future, but for now, it’s mature enough to put into everyday use, and we hope you like it. Or love it, maybe even enough to stalk some of us staffers

Tabula Rasa to hold back-to-basics Q&A event originally appeared on Massively on Fri, 07 Nov 2008 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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This week we’ve added new video content from the following television series:

• American Dad, Season 4
• Bones, Season 4
• Chuck, Season 2
• Elite Forces, Season 1
• Family Guy, Season 7
• Friends, Season 5
• Fringe, Season 1
• How I Met Your Mother, Season 1 &4
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia, Season 4
• Miami Ink, Season 4
• My Name Is Earl, Season 4
• Mythbusters, Season 4
• Prison Break, Season 4
• Pushing Daisies, Season 2
• Sons of Anarchy, Season 1
• Speed Grapher, Season 1
• Squidbillies, Season 2
• Top Tens, Season 1
• Watchmen Motion Comic, Season 1
• Weaponology, Season 1

We’ve also added the following feature films:

• 30 Days of Night
• 88 Minutes
• A Mighty Heart
• Absolute Power
• Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams
• An Arctic Tale
• Anaconda 3: Offspring
• Arctic Tale
• Arthur
• Assassins
• Barnyard
• Batman Beyond: The Return of the Joker
• Beerfest
• Blood Work
• Blue Collar Comedy Tour Rides Again
• Blue Collar Comedy Tour: One for the Road
• Body Heat
• Catacombs
• Child’s Play (1972)
• City of Angels
• City of Men
• Clash of the Titans
• Collateral Damage
• Con Air
• Cookie
• Creepshow
• Crossroads
• Daisy Miller
• Deliverance
• Dial M for Murder
• Dirty Harry
• Down With Love
• Enter the Dragon
• Forces of Nature
• G.I. Blues
• Gallipoli
• Ghost Ship
• Glory Road
• Green Mile
• How The Garcia Girls Spent Their Summer
• How to Lose A Guy In 10 Days
• I Still Know What You Did Last Summer
• Infamous
• Invincible
• It Started In Naples
• John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars
• John Carpenter’s Vampires
• Jonathan Livingston Seagull
• Ladyhawke
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider
• Last Holiday
• Last Of The Red Hot Lovers
• Les Formidables
• Li’l Abner
• Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
• Logan’s Run
• Margot At The Wedding
• Mars Attacks!
• Monster House
• Murder at 1600
• My Blue Heaven
• Nacho Libre
• Nate And Hayes
• Night of the Living Dead
• Nothing But Trouble
• Oliver’s Story
• Once Upon a Time in America
• Once Upon A Time In The West
• Orca: The Killer Whale
• Over Her Dead Body
• Pale Rider
• Phone Booth
• Plaza Suite
• Primal Fear
• Pushing Tin
• Quest for Camelot
• Reprise
• Romeo and Juliet
• Roving Mars [IMAX]
• Rustlers’ Rhapsody
• Saturday Night Fever
• Save The Last Dance
• Scooby-Doo and the Goblin King
• Signs
• Smart People
• Snow Angels
• Spies Like Us
• Stand and Deliver
• Strange Wilderness
• Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines
• Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
• The Business Of Being Born
• The Champ (1979)
• The Departed
• The Hunter
• The Italian Job (1969)
• The Little Mermaid: Ariel’s Beginning
• The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring
• The Manchurian Candidate (2004)
• The Queen
• The Recruit
• The Rock
• The Rocky Horror Picture Show
• The Sons of Katie Elder
• The Sum of All Fears
• The Time Machine
• The Train Robbers
• The Trumpet of the Swan
• This Property Is Condemned
• THX 1138
• Tin Cup
• Tobe Hooper’s Night Terrors
• Tortured
• Twilight Zone: The Movie
• Wiggles: Sing A Song of Wiggles

And, here are our top 20 movie and top 20 TV downloads for the week:

Have a great weekend!

Continue reading Nega-Review: Fallout 3

Nega-Review: Fallout 3 originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 29 Oct 2008 12:44:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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When I first stepped into the world of Albion in Fable II, I intended to do good.

This new Xbox 360 role-playing game, like its predecessor, challenges players to enter a world in which their every action affects their character's development. Killing people for fun makes you evil, of course, but so might raising their rent. Fable II delivers on this promise much better than the first game, although the good-evil distinctions are still not especially subtle. Although some technical glitches and bad design decisions hurt the final product, this is still an excellent RPG.

My choice of the "good" path was not out of some moral obligation. I have no emotional attachments to computer-controlled characters, no matter how eloquently they deliver their prerecorded bits of dialogue. Experience with videogames that let you choose your moral code has taught me that a player's choice of good over evil has little to do with peering into your soul and everything to do with pragmatism: You usually can't explore all the little nuances of gameplay if you stray too far from the light.

Since my ultimate goal was to become a real estate magnate, I set about doing good deeds to win over the populace. And yet, no matter how many evil beasties I vanquished, the townspeople still muttered obscenities under their breath whenever I passed by. Turns out I was charging them too much for rent, and the prices on goods at the three or four pathetic shops I owned were a bit higher than the town's average rates. What, I'm supposed to leave money on the table for these chumps?

So when I tried to buy a meat vendor's stall and he jacked up the price because he didn't like me, either, I snapped. All of that time spent fighting their bandits and working odd jobs, and these peasants dare call me corrupt? In a fit of blind rage, I killed him with a fireball. And when the guards arrived, I tore into them, too, carving a bloody swath through the town square before scampering out into the wilderness, sick with regret. I couldn't just load up a saved game, so this act would mar my character forever.

I knew right then that Fable II was something special.

The world of Fable II is a rich, inviting place. Though the game has its darker sections, there's an undercurrent of joy and humor that's refreshing.  Strolling through towns and listening to the statements they make is a game in and of itself, particularly if you're on the extreme ends of the good/evil spectrum.

Albion is a gorgeous place, and there are plenty of quests and jobs to complete -- you can tackle as many or as little of them as you want, in any order you choose. An optional "golden trail" points you to your next destination, but will work differently for every player. Mine served as a guide to help me explore -- I just went wherever the trail wasn't pointing.

There are quite a few diverse towns and regions, but you needn't wander all throughout them -- there's a fast-travel option that lets you immediately zip anywhere you need to be. I'm torn as to whether or not this is a good thing or a bad thing. While I loved the feeling of roaming in a game like Oblivion, it's hard to deny that walking past the same pack of trees over and over again can become a bit boring.

It's the people of Albion that make it feel like a living, breathing world. Whether or not you're personally invested in their quality of life,  you'll find yourself balancing the needs of its citizens with your own motivations. For "good" players, that means taking careful stock of the economy and injecting gold into floundering towns by way of spending sprees, improving the quality of life.

"Evil" players, try suiting up in your most sinister garb and stroll through a village, striking fear into passersby and imposing your will on the weak. The townsfolk will hate you and the economy will suffer. If you're an outlaw with a bad reputation, this is an excellent tactic for swooping in and buying property for cheap.

There an impressive amount of depth here, and Fable II makes a strong attempt at wrapping it all in a user-friendly atmosphere. The problem is that the game's systems are utterly transparent. Within an hour or so of playing, you're likely to have a complete grasp on how the binary reward/punishment system works.

Every action you take affects your ranking on two charts: Good versus Evil, and Purity versus Corruption. Generous vegetarians are pure, while thieves who eat a lot of meat will soon find themselves sprouting horns. There are a few more gauges that measure how you interact with individual people in town, whether they like you or hate you. Once you get the hang of these, you'll know how to interact with people in a way that furthers your gameplay objectives.

You can use a whole variety of bodily "expressions" to communicate. These seem at first to be a whimsical way to inject your own creativity into the world, but soon become a means to an end. Need a spouse? Find a male or female who isn't terrified of you, check their stats to see what sort of gifts and expressions they like, and proceed to act like an idiot in front of them until they love you enough to accept a proposal.

But Fable II isn't all cold and calculating. There's also the dog.

Your character has a constant companion, a dog that follows you, adventures with you, and loves you unconditionally. While the humans in the game often feel like easily-manipulated robots, the dog feels like a dog. He'll bound alongside you with palpable excitement as you explore. Whenever we explored dark caves and he became scared I dashed over to comfort him, out of pure instinct. And when the occasional villager kicked him out of spite or malice... well, let's just say the survivors still speak of my fury in hushed tones.

Your dog's appearance will change alongside yours, but his personality does not. The townspeople reviled my evil dog's dark coat and sinister red eyes, but he remained the jovial and exuberant yin to my genocidal yang. I'm convinced that this is directly related to how he was raised: I showered him with praise and treats, frequently played fetch and taught him all sorts of tricks. I'll probably never be sure though, as I haven't had the heart to use the "Punish" option on my dog, and probably never will.

For a game that excels at setting up such an immersive atmosphere, Fable II's shoddy interface is a bit devastating. Much of the problem lies with a context-sensitive system that enjoys making decisions for you, guessing what it is you're trying to look at, or deciding what item you'd like to use.

This second issue is a serious technical problem. For whatever reason, Fable II consistently stutters and hangs while you're scrolling through the menus. What should be a simple matter of handing a gift to a potential mate becomes a slog into Menu Hell.

You can't assign items to a particular button for fast use in combat. Instead, the game suggests an object for you to use, which usually isn't the one you were hoping for. Do you settle for that piece of fish when you wanted a potion, or fire up the inventory and deal with the choppy scrolling and poorly organized interface?

That's not the end of Fable II's technical issues. On a few occasions the game froze completely, usually after I had fast-traveled from one location to another, or left me inextricably stuck inside a wall.

Despite these technical troubles, Fable II remains a captivating experience. There's a real opportunity to direct your own narrative, whether you just want to slog through the story and get cool gear or shape the entire world as you see fit. And it comes so close to succeeding, too.

Nevertheless, in an industry that spends so much time going for scripted cinematics and that "Hollywood" dynamic, a game where a player's actions can have real consequences is a step in the right direction.

Images courtesy Microsoft

WIRED Vibrant atmosphere, deep gameplay, pick-up-and-play design

TIRED Technical difficulties, iffy targeting system, character interactions not very subtle

$60, Lionhead Studios

Rating:

Read Game|Life's game ratings guide.

See Also:

• Hands-On: Choose Your Own Adventure with Fable 2
• Lionhead: Fable II Collector's Edition 'Gutted'
• Molyneux: Fable II Cheaters Will Be Punished

Several of us at Destructoid have been messing around in the magical world of Fable II as of late and we’ve been experiencing a few bugs here and there. But according to a report from X3F, there is a bigger, nastier bug than merely freezing when initiating a flourish against a wall. This bug could force you to have to restart your game completely.

The bug revolves around a main story quest called “Monk’s Quest,” where players are sent to the Temple of Light to take care of a task for the Abbot. If players leave the region while the Abbot is talking about the finer points of the task, then they will be unable to complete the quest. Considering that this is a main story quest, this is a very bad thing.

Lionhead is aware of the problem and has advised players to finish the conversation before heading back out into the wilderness. They are also currently working on a fix, but be careful in the meantime.