Whoa, Mass Effect 2!!!

Mass Effect 2!!

Bittorrent and other piracy networks are going be lighting up like crazy.  Both the Xbox 360 and PC versions have been leaked 5 days or so before the official launch date.

Bioware is so screwed.  ME2 is definitely going to be one of the most pirated games this year.

Note to pirates…BUY THE GAME!  SUPPORT BIOWARE.  They are one of the best development houses and deserve to be compensated for putting a ridiculous amount of effort into creating their games.  They don’t cut corners like so many other developers do and they make amazing games.

Anyways…

I’m playing ME2 right now!  It’s awesome.  It feels and plays like a sequel to ME1, except it somehow feels more cinematic and grander.  The game looks and runs perfectly on my computer (Max’ed out settings.  My Radeon 5770 is giving me a solid 60fps, which seems to be the max framerate.)

Bioware recruited several Hollywood actors for the voice parts, which is actually a bit jarring for me.  One of the companions is voiced by the actress playing Sarah in the TV show Chuck.  I love that show, so I’m having a hard time adjusting to her new character, especially with the Australian accent.  She has a really distinctive voice.  Bioware even make her character look a little like the actress.

A negative so far is that the combat feels looser and faster paced than ME1.  I’m having trouble aiming and using my special abilities effectively.  Everything seems to die really quickly and my character gets hurt faster.  Maybe this is just because I’m still only a couple hours into the game.

As Bioware promised, ME2 does read your old ME1 save files and it does seem to have an impact on the storyline continuity.  I fiddled around with it a little bit by downloading a couple random ME1 save files from the Bioware forums.  In my current game, I started from scratch and the game just fills in the necessary blanks, so it’s not a problem.  I’m not sure if you get any bonuses.  I’ll have to go rooting around my archives to see if I can find my own ME1 save files.

I’m moving to my new house in two days, so I have to pack up my computer in a few hours!  So sad.  I can’t keep playing ME2 for much longer right now.

(Yes, I will buy the game!!  I couldn’t resist playing it a few days early.)

I have to go rooting around my archives to see if I can find my own ME1 save files.

The real problem with MMO’s: No skill required

The novelty of playing an MMORPG is long gone for me.  There is nothing new and exciting.  The social aspect fails to muster much attention.  After a decade of playing MMORPG’s, even the other players are all clones of one another.  Every MMO on the market is essentially the exact same game with a slightly different sugar coating.

I’m not alone in feeling this way.  I would wager that millions of players feel exactly the way that I do. It’s human nature.  If you spend hundreds, thousands of hours doing one activity, you will get tired and bored of it.  The magic is gone.

The huge failures of the past few years (Age of Conan, Warhammer Online, Tabula Rasa, etc.) was probably caused in large part by disappointed and jaded players.  Players jump from game to game looking for something exciting to grab their attention, but after a month or two, the novelty wears thin and the only thing remaining is the infamous MMO grind.

Why?

There is no real depth to MMO’s.  Very little skill is required.

In MMO’s, hard work is rewarded…not skill.  To reach the highest peaks in an MMO, all you have to do is invest the time.

When you achieve a goal in an MMO, like leveling up or obtaining loot, you feel a sense of accomplishment for the time invested.  This is not the same as the sense of accomplishment you feel for achieving something skill based.

In comparision, let’s take a look at two other hugely popular genres of online games: first-person shooters and real time strategy games.  For both FPS’s and RTS’s, skill is rewarded, not hard work.  You can spend thousands of hours playing Call of Duty or Warcraft 3, but if you aren’t any good at playing these games, you will never achieve anything.

If you suck at FPS’s or RTS’s, you will constantly lose to other players.  If you suck at MMO’s, it’s doesn’t really matter.  You can die over and over again, but as long as you have the patience to keep trying, you will eventually succeed.

Skill based achievement is ultimately more rewarding than work based achievement.

Let’s take a look at the core gameplay in an MMO: Combat.  Pick a target and hit the same sequence of keystrokes.  For many combat encounters, that’s about the depth of gameplay involved.  In comparison, combat in FPS’s or RTS’s is far more involved.  Let’s take the analogy further and compare it to real life combat.  There are countless people in the world that devote their entire lives to learning combat skills.

Combat in an MMO is boring, stupid and repetitive.  No skill is required.  There is little sense of achievement for killing something.  The same holds true for practically every aspect of MMO gameplay, like crafting, gathering and exploring.

I am oversimplifying it a little bit.  You do need a minimal level of skill and a reasonable online social ability to find and join a like minded group of players.  Nothing more is necessary to excel in an MMO.  The primary attributes for MMO success are patience and a lot of free time.

Veteran MMO players looking for something more usually look to PvP or top tier raiding to find some sense of satisfaction.  To be a top PvP’er, you need a lot of knowledge about the game and a reasonably good level of skill.  Top tier raiding is primarily an exercise of organizing a big group of people together to achieve the same goal.  Even PvP and raiding eventually lose their appeal.

Unfortunately, in the current MMO market, innovation seems to be dying.  It is too costly to create a new MMO and even if millions of dollars are invested, there are no guarantees.  Game publishers and developers are largely unwilling to take risks.  As a result, we get dozens of cookie cutter MMO’s.  Occasionally, there are little evolutionary advances in gameplay, but it’s not enough.

Star Trek Online: Beta First Impressions

Star Trek is one of the most known and loved names in entertainment.  Unfortunately, Star Trek games have historically been horrible piles of crap.  When Cryptic bought the rights to create a Star Trek MMO, they took on a huge task.  Could they please the hordes of Trekkie fans while breaking the curse and producing a good game?  Did they deliver?

The Good

Cryptic drew heavily from their Champions Online and City of Heroes background to create this game.  As a result, they were able to create STO at record speed and incorporate a lot of time tested code and design.  Some players have noted that sometimes STO feels like Champions Online in space.

Gameplay is split into two major aspects; avatar based and ship based.  This fits the Star Trek theme where there are away teams that explore planets and ship combat.  Avatar based combat is mostly standard MMO fare.  The primary difference is that you are almost never alone.  Other than the introductory missions, every mission seems to be team based composed of your own NPC bridge officers and/or other players.  Your NPC bridge officers are pets with limited controls.

Whenever you enter an instance to do a mission, the game always tries to team you up with other players.  This is true for both avatar and ship based missions.  This is a great feature to promote team play.

Unlike standard MMO quests, most missions in STO are multipart affairs.  It’s clear that Cryptic tried to focus on story by making every away team mission into something more complicated than the usual kill ten rats or delivery quests.  This is a nice change from the norm, but I fear that it might mean that Cryptic will be slower at creating new content for the game.

Ship based combat is probably the biggest highlight in the game for me.  You have to juggle your shields, energy levels, your movement (speed and direction) and your attacks all at the same time.  If you aren’t paying attention, it’s quite possible to become overwhelmed very quickly.

One example of how ship based combat is interesting is the management of 4 different shields (front, right, left, rear).  As long as your shields are up, your ship is safe from high damaging attacks.  As a result, space combat is a constant back and forth where you are trying to attack the same shield to break it down, while protecting your own shields.  To protect your shield, you can boost power to a specific shield to raise the regeneration rate, use a special engineering power or consumable or simply turn your ship in another direction.  In addition, the basic starter ship has two lasers, one in the front and rear.  So to be the most effective, you want to broadside your target so both of your lasers can attack the same target.  The entire time, you have to juggle your power input into your offense, defense, movement and auxiliary functions.  When facing multiple enemies, combat can become really hectic.

Avatar ground based combat benefits from the addition of the shield mechanic as well, to a lesser degree.  Everyone has a shield and a health bar.  Both are healed by different classes.  There are no directional shields, but if you attack from the side or rear, you get a flanking bonus which results in significantly more damage.

Managing your bridge officers is a nice addition to the leveling process.  You have to manage their gear as well as leveling them up and allocating skill points.  Right now, I am somewhat overwhelmed by the sheer number of options.  Leveling up in STO is not as straightforward as it is in other games and that is a good thing for the games longevity.

As you might expect from a Cryptic game, both your avatar and your ship are highly customizable.  This is a big selling point for Cryptic and I’m sure that Cryptic will include more costume pieces as game rewards or purchasable items from their microtransaction shore.

STO runs great on my gaming rig.  I’m playing at 1920×1200 with completely max’ed out settings and getting 50+ fps in most areas.  Most people should be able to run STO without too many issues.  Network lag is currently an issue in some areas, but since this is beta, the lag is excusable for now.

In terms of graphics, STO is passable.  It’s not ugly, but, overall, it’s not particularly noteworthy either.  Considering I’m running at maximum settings, I did expect more.  The backdrop in outer space can look quite breathtaking at times.

The Bad

STO is heavily instanced.  It’s as bad as Guild Wars.  Everything is instanced.  The heavy instancing can sometimes make STO feel like a single player game and this is a real problem.  If I want to play a single player game, there are hundreds of better games where I can spend my limited time and money.

For many gamers, their primary problem with Champions Online was the instancing.  STO is far worse.  This is an issue for MMO gamers who love big expansive worlds to explore.  Missions are instanced for solo or team gameplay.  Common areas like the primary Earth starbase has multiple instances with a maximum cap on the population (similar to Champions Online).  The maximum population in the primary Earth starbase seems very low, which makes STO feel even less like an MMO.

Moving between star systems is rather strange as well.  You warp from your current star system into a strange meta-area called Sector Space, which is like a miniature version of the galaxy.  In this instance, you pick another star system and your ship flies towards the destination until it’s close enough to zone in.  Sector Space doesn’t look like anything real, so it’s rather jarring.  I don’t understand the purpose of this meta-area.

Because of the constant instancing, there are a lot of load screens.  I didn’t mind it all that much, but on slower machines, I can see it being a major annoyance.

On the plus side, Cryptic learned some lessons from the instancing in Champions Online.  Chat channels span multiple instances in STO and it’s also much easier to find, create and join teams.  This does go a long way towards minimizing the immersion breaking nature of having so many instances, but it’s not a perfect solution.

The ground based combat currently feels a bit rough.  Gunplay feels okay, but melee attacks don’t feel right.  It’s hard to explain the problem.  I suppose for an MMO, this is typical, but for a game released in 2010, I expected more.  After playing so many single player games recently, the combat in STO is really clunky by comparison.

I had some stability issues with STO as well.  STO managed to hard freeze my computer on multiple occasions, forcing me to reboot.  Since I’m running Windows 7, being forced to reboot is a big deal.  I’m sure stability issues will get ironed out in time, but it’s worth noting.

I haven’t played enough to experience much of the crafting or PvP, so I’ll reserve judgment on them until a later time.

Another issue is that Cryptic currently only allows TWO characters per account.  I’m sure we’ll be able to buy more from the Cryptic store, but TWO is ridiculously low.  I can understand the need for Cryptic to build in more ways for them to make money, especially in this horrible economy, but having only two slots is extremely restrictive.

Conclusion

My beta experience so far is a mixed bag.  I have a feeling that gamers are going to have wildly differing opinions of STO.  Some will love it.  Some will absolutely hate it.

As long as Cryptic doesn’t botch the launch, STO will probably do fine in terms of sales and subscriptions.  After the MMO debacles of the last couple years, everyone’s expectations have bottomed out.  The hype for STO is lower than I would expect for a Star Trek MMO and that is probably a good thing.  A lot of gamers are skeptical of a new Star Trek game and a new Cryptic game.  They are waiting around to see how well the game performs once it launches before making any commitments.

I am having fun right now, but based on Cryptic’s other games, my primary worry about STO is the longevity.  Does it have enough content and depth to keep players around for more than a month or two?  I don’t know.

As a final note, this post is my first impressions of the limited time I’ve spent playing the closed and open betas.  There could be some major inaccuracies (which I will correct), but overall, this post is indicative of how I feel about the game right now.

STO runs great on my gaming rig.  I’m playing at 1920×1200 with completely max’ed out settings and getting 50+ fps in most areas.  Most people should be able to run STO without too many issues.STO runs great on my gaming rig.  I’m playing at 1920×1200 with completely max’ed out settings and getting 50+ fps in most areas.  Most people should be able to run STO without too many issues.STO runs great on my gaming rig.  I’m playing at 1920×1200 with completely max’ed out settings and getting 50+ fps in most areas.  Most people should be able to run STO without too many issues.

Star Trek Online: Super early impressions

I know it’s still closed beta!!  Yes, that means that the NDA is still up.  But there have been a bazillion leaks all over the place and the open beta starts in a couple days, anyways.  I’m dying to talk about the game and my experiences, so I’ll indulge myself.

Surprisingly, I’m having fun!  But…

Haha, that’s about all I’m going to say right now.  I’ll write more in a few days once open beta starts and I delve deeper into the game.

Star Trek Online beta gameplay videos

Someone posted a bunch of gameplay videos on Youtube with decent quality.  Interesting.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sto+adarons&search_type=&aq=f

There are videos of both starship and avatar gameplay.  They look somewhat generic (spaceships and people shooting lasers), but until I actually play the game, it’s hard to tell whether it’s going to be a fun experience.  It has potential, but I refuse to buy into any pre-release hype.

I have to admit that I’m not particularly excited about the imminent release of STO on February 2nd.  The game is currently in closed beta and open beta is right around the corner (January 12th).

Once I get into the beta (should be very soon), I’ll post some first impressions.

There are a lot of mixed opinions of STO, ranging from blind fanboyism to blind hatred.  I did have a lot of fun playing Cryptic’s other MMORPG, Champions Online, so I’m hopeful that STO should be entertaining.  But based on CO, I question whether STO will have the depth of gameplay and content to keep subscribers interested for a long time.

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=sto+adarons&search_type=&aq=f

Quick review of the AMD Radeon 5770

Over a month ago, my beloved nVidia Geforce 8800GT died a slow, painful death.  I was devastated (well, kinda), but I forced myself to move past the pain and find a replacement.  After a lot of research, I narrowed it down to three choices: AMD Radeon 5850, AMD Radeon 5770 and the AMD Radeon 4870.

Yes, all three are AMD videocards.  AMD recently released their new line of DirectX 11 based GPU’s, the Radeon 5000’s.  Every card is priced competitively and strikes a major blow at nVidia in terms of pricing and performance.  nVidia is now losing to AMD at practically every price point.

I wanted the top notch performance of the Radeon 5850, but no one had it in stock at a price I was willing to pay!  I didn’t want to pay an extra $50 or more over the list price.  In addition, after seeing my last graphics card die an early death, I wanted to buy the card from a company that offered a stellar warranty.  That meant XFX because they offer a double lifetime warranty (if you sell the card, the buyer also gets a lifetime warranty).

After failing for a month to get my hands on a Radeon 5850, I gave in and ordered a Radeon 5770.  I had somewhat low expectations, but when I finally plugged the card into my computer, I was very impressed.  I am quite happy with my new Radeon 5770.

Every game I’ve tried so far runs silky smooth at over 50 frames per second at 1920×1200, maximum settings, 8x anti-aliasing and 16x anisotropic (My CPU is an Intel Core i7 920 overclocked to 3.60ghz).  This includes Dragon Age: Origins, Left4Dead, Batman: Arkham Asylum, Tomb Raider: Underworld and several others.  Left4Dead runs with triple digit framerates.

How can I complain about a videocard that gives me 50+ fps on every game that I’m currently playing?  The Radeon 5770 costs around $165, so I’m not paying a huge premium either.

It is a DirectX 11 card, so it has some future viability.  What really appeals to me is that the Radeon 5770 runs fairly cool and quiet and requires significantly less power than its competition.  Looking an year or two into the future, I should be able to buy another Radeon 5770 for cheap and run the pair in a Crossfire setup.  Two Crossfired Radeon 5770’s are faster than a Radeon 5850.  That is a lot of power…far more than necessary for today’s games.

I still have a pre-order at Amazon.com for the XFX Radeon 5850 at the original list price ($259.99).  I have no idea when Amazon will get them in stock, but I’m thinking about canceling it.  I have no complaints at all about the Radeon 5770.  It does everything I want it to do.  In comparison, the Radeon 5850 is total overkill.

Should you buy the Radeon 5770 or the Radeon 5850?

If a store gets any in stock, the Radeon 5850 sells out immediately.  As a result, the price is far beyond the original list price of $260.  The cheapest online shops like Newegg.com are selling them for $309 and up.  I expect the price will continue to rise, especially with the holiday season just around the corner.

The Radeon 5850 merits such high demand.  Benchmarking shows that it outperforms the Radeon 5770 by 40% to 50%.  That is hugely significant.  The big question is whether you need so much power.  Once a game is running at over 30 frames per second, most people can’t tell the difference.  If it reaches 60 fps and over, the human eye can’t tell any difference.

The Radeon 5770 offers plenty of punch for most of today’s games, excluding the truly ridiculous games like Crysis that have insane system requirements.  At today’s prices, it is nearly half the price of the Radeon 5850.

For most gamers, the Radeon 5770 is a great choice.  It’s not overly expensive and has low heat and power requirements for a performance card.  At 1080p resolutions, it is quite happy with the vast majority of games on the market.

How about the Radeon 4870?

If you have a $150′ish budget and all you care about is performance, the Radeon 4870 is your best choice.  My only issue with the card is that it runs very hot.  That means the fan is probably louder than most and some people have stability issues due to overheating.  Make sure you pick up a model with a tried and true cooling solution.

I caved in and bought a Playstation 3

After my recent frustrations with my Xbox 360 (hardware problems) and a growing annoyance with the cooling fan that sounds like a vacuum cleaner, I decided to jump ship and join the dark side (or is it the light side?).  Apparently, I’m not the only one.  Playstation 3 sales have been climbing steadily this past year, while both the Wii and the Xbox 360 are dropping.  The PS3 library is filling in nicely.  It has no hardware issues.  It plays Blu-ray disks and the price is somewhat reasonable at $299.

Another huge allure for me is the Ratchet & Clank series.  It is my absolute favorite platforming/action series and I’ve missed it greatly.  I played every Ratchet & Clank PS2 game a half dozen times.  I’ve been playing a lot of Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction since my UPS guy delivered my PS3 yesterday.  I don’t know why I love the furry little guy and his robot sidekick so much, but I can’t get enough of them.

I also installed a couple media streaming programs on my computer.  PS3 Media Server works amazingly well.  It’s simple to set up and use (and it’s free).  I also installed TVersity, which is one of the most popular streaming programs.  In terms of performance, PS3 Media Server seems to be faster than TVersity.  TVersity Pro version isn’t free, but you can download it and use it for as long as you want without paying a cent.  That’s an awful lot of trust in the customers and I wonder how well that’s working out for the TVersity developers.

The only issue I have with both programs is that they have some problems handling .mkv files.  Playback is fine, but if you try to fast forward or rewind, it crashes the streaming server and I have to manually recover and restart the program.  This is a bit of a problem because .mkv is the preferred format for high definition anime and TV shows that get posted online.

I’m looking forward to playing all the PS3 exclusives like the Uncharted series and Metal Gear Solid.  I already filled my Gamefly queue with 21 games!  That’ll keep me busy for a long time.

Hah! The Xbox 360 Towel Trick works!

I’ve been giggling like an idiot for the past two days now.

A couple days ago, I was searching the net and looking for some possible fixes for my poor Xbox 360 Elite.  I also wanted to find out how soon it dies after it starts showing signs of problems.

That’s when I ran into blog postings and short news articles mentioning the ‘Towel Trick’.  If the Xbox is suffering the RRoD hardware failure, people have found that wrapping it completely in a towel and turning it on for 10 minutes can resurrect the system.  For most people, the system returns from the dead for a variable number of hours before dying again.  Typically, if the Towel Trick worked once, it can be reused indefinitely.  There are reports of the Towel Trick permanently fixing Xbox’s.

I figured that I had nothing to lose.  My video problems were getting worse and a system failure was inevitable.

I loaded a graphically extensive game, wrapped my Xbox 360 in a huge blanket, and left it on.  I could hear the fan revving up, even under the thick layer of blanket.  After about 10 minutes, the fan whirred to a stop.  Curious, I looked under the blanket.  My Xbox was showing 4 red lights…the RRoD.  I turned it off, removed the blankets and let it rest for a while.

I was utterly shocked when I turned on the system and it booted into Xbox Live without any problems.  Hopeful, I loaded a game and started playing.

I’ve played about 6 hours since then….no video problems at all!!  (By the way, Tales of Vesperia is a great Japanese RPG.)

It’s so hilarious that a ‘next-generation’ console can be fixed (temporarily?) by wrapping it in a towel.  Reminds me of the ancient days when we used to blow on the bottom of Nintendo cartridges.

Argh! Now my Xbox 360 is dying…

I think I’m going to remember the end of 2009 as the time when I was cursed and all my beloved gaming electronics died on me.

My Xbox 360 Elite is showing signs of video failure.  I think it might be the E74 error, which is caused by a problem with the hardware scaler, but it’s too early to tell.  Right now, I’m getting color blotches over the entire screen.  It looks kinda like I’m running a game on a monitor that doesn’t display enough colors.  The game is still playable, since I’m not crashing, but it’s a rather questionable gaming experience.

I specifically bought the Elite version because I wanted to avoid the Red Ring of Death (RROD) issue that was so prevalent.  I even bought it from Costco because at the time, they had a great return policy on electronics.

After a couple years had passed, I was hoping that I had gotten lucky with a solid console.  I guess not.  I suppose compared to a LOT of other gamers, I am lucky.  Many people have gone through multiple Xbox’s.

I ordered another HDMI cable to see if swapping it will fix the problem, but I doubt it.  I get the same issues when I use a component cable.

So at this point, I’m hoping my Xbox does die in a RROD or E74, so I can get it fixed under warranty.  The Elite model was released in 2007, which means my Xbox is less than 3 years old.  Microsoft will fix RROD or E74 problems if it happens within 3 years.

I have absolutely no idea where my receipt is now, so if Microsoft doesn’t automatically fix it for free, I’m in trouble.  I hear that Microsoft charges $110 + shipping to repair a console.  At that price, I think it might be better to buy a brand new model that uses newer components.

Either way, I’m going to buy and switch to the Playstation 3.  The PS3 has very, very, very few hardware issues and the gaming library is finally decent and worthwhile.

I’m also probably going to buy a Radeon 5770 this week.  I’m tired of waiting for the 5850 and since the holiday season is upon us, it’s going to be even harder to find.  Once the 5850’s are more available, I’ll pick one up and move the 5770 to my home theater PC or give it to a family member.

Sigh.

Defense Grid tactical maps

This is a quick post about the tactical maps that someone (T@T-2-MoNk3y) put together from the images posted by the developers.  These are high resolution images of all the levels and they include flight paths.  They were hugely helpful to me when I was playing the game.

If you haven’t played Defense Grid yet, go out and buy it!  It’s a great tower defense game and it’s only $10 on Steam.  It’s also available on Xbox Live and probably selling for the same price.