Author Archives: Self Similar

Muh site!

News stuff

There’s always lots of gaming news but I don’t make much of an effort to talk much about it unless it particularly interests me. Hell, E3 came and went a few weeks ago unnoticed by this blog for that matter. Lately though there’s been a stack of stories that I’ve wanted to comment on all hitting the gaming news aggregation sites at around the same time.

It turns out that EA’s merging Bioware’s Old Republic and Mythic’s Warhammer Online (and, I’m assuming other) teams. Mark Jacobs of Mythic has also stepped down though it isn’t clear under what circumstances. It’s understandable that EA might want Mythic to lend its considerable MMO experience to the Bioware since this will be Bioware’s first MMO but given Jacob’s departure the opposite scenario could be true as well – perhaps EA wants Bioware to help save Warhammer Online?

Mark leaving is also a bit surprising to me as he’s been the voice of Warhammer Online and Mythic as a whole to some degree for a while now and, while I admit I haven’t been keeping up on Warhammer Online news after unsubscribing, he didn’t seem to be receiving too much credit for any of the game’s shortcomings. Perhaps EA feels differently about it though. For what it’s worth I liked Warhammer Online quite a lot and will probably check it out again someday. I can only imagine the recent changes such as the addition of the Land of The Dead are only improvements. As a bit of a Bioware fan I also hope that Old Republic turns out to be the World of Warcraft killer that so many people think it might be.

Two games I was interested in, ArmA II and Battlefield 1943 have both been released. ArmA II is, unsurprisingly, apparently chalk full of bugs. The first ArmA game was much the same way though in my experience much was fixed in post release patches. I’ve got it on order but don’t plan on jumping into it too soon. The XBLA and PS3 Battlefield 1943, however, is quite good according to most reports I’ve read. It has been having major server problems since launch, however. I definitely plan on checking that one out quite soon. Battlefield Heroes is also officially live now and I don’t know how I’ve not yet tried it.

Seemingly out of nowhere Piranha Games officially confirmed that it is working on MechWarrior 5. Battletech/MechWarrior lovers rejoice! Fans of the series have been pining for a sequel to simulation heavy MechWarrior PC series for quite sometime now and the closest they’ve gotten recently were the two MechAssault games on the original Xbox… which is to say not very close. Sadly I predict that MechWarrior fans will freak out even more than Fallout fans did over Fallout 3 when this is finally released and isn’t exactly what they wanted it to be down to the last detail. Check out this trailer.

Bethesda’s parent company Zenimax has bought Id software. I guess Bethesda wasn’t screwing around about wanting to get more into publishing games. John Carmack has done a few interviews and whatnot and seems generally quite pleased with the deal though as an oldschool Wolfenstein 3D and Doom fan it still stings a little. Still, this makes the total gaming geek in me wonder about the possibility of the next Elder Scrolls or Fallout game running in an Id engine or even a Doom open world RPG. 😛

Finally, and these ones are a bit older than the rest but well worth the wait. First of all LucasArts is releasing a remake of the original Secret of Monkey Island on PC and XBLA in a special edition format with remade graphics and voice acting. Soooo bought. Telltale Games, responsible for the Sam and Max episodic games, has also announced it’s working on an episodic Monkey Island series called Tales of Monkey Island. Again, bought… Well, eventually. It’s only coming to WiiWare and PC at first so I might hold off for a XBLA release.

Finally, LucasArts announced that it’ll be releasing some of its back catalog on Steam. The first round isn’t amazing exciting though it features some games I’d definitely consider classics such as The Dig and the Indian Jones adventure games. I’m sure they’ll be more than this released down the line and there’s a high possibility that I’ll be buying it all. I wish LucasArts would release these old games in a retail format as well, just for safe keeping, but Steam is better than nothing!

Sheesh. All of these announcements are making me think that the original The Secret of Monkey Island may be the next game I review.

Pacific Vacation

I feel like a total slacker for neglecting my blog so much in the last few weeks. Apologies to the few of my friends who keep up with it. There’s a variety of reasons why: As I mentioned previously I had been trying to put my nose to the grindstone and get through Ninja Gaiden 2. I’d also not been playing much Oblivion since I had a backlog of Garn entries to write. That’s becoming a real bummer with the current format I’m using – I’m really excited to play but can only play so much before I need to stop and find time to write about what I’ve played. I’ve also been trying to get my America’s Army 3 clan off of the ground which I’ll write a lot more about soon. Probably my main excuse is that I usually write my blog entries during my downtime at work but due to changing positions and some new, major projects I’ve had very, very little useful downtime over the last few weeks.

Anyway, I did it! About two weeks ago now I managed to beat Ninja Gaiden 2 on warrior difficulty. Like the first game the difficulty kind of plateaued towards the middle – sure, they’d keep throwing new enemies at you but they didn’t necessarily get any harder, just different and, thankfully, I never ended up getting anywhere close to as pissed off at the game as I did earlier on. I ended switching from using my trusty leveled up Dragon Sword to my even trustier leveled up Eclipse Scythe and never really looked back.

The most notable thing about the finale of the game had to be the 9 (yes, 9!) boss battles more or less back to back in the last 3 levels of the game. Luckily only one, the second to last one, gave me any real trouble. Like the first game I’m shamefully sort of proud to have struggled through and beaten a game so few others have. I almost immediately changed my XBL avatar to a NG2 one in celebration. I can’t imagine playing it again any time soon through and hats off to the few, extremely hardcore players who continued upwards through the higher difficulty modes. No thanks!

“I’m so glad Amazon.com doesn’t have this problem.”

I moved on to the next game in my backlog queue, Battlestations: Midway for the Xbox 360, and man is it interesting. I don’t think I’d call myself a huge military/war buff compared to a lot of people out there but I do have an above average appreciation for such things and this is an entirely different take on the World War II genre. It reminds me of some sort of twisted interpretation of what Battlefield: 1942 was originally promised to be back before it was released and a lot of people didn’t think it’d ever work. “Wow man, you can run around on the ground, fly planes, drive tanks, even sail ships!” So yeah, Battlestations: Midway is like that, only as a real time strategy game instead of a first person shooter. Ok, that statement didn’t make much sense but I was totally asleep when I originally wrote it. 😉

I feel that I’m being somewhat inaccurate calling it an RTS though. It definitely is an RTS though it doesn’t have much in common by with the mainstream evolution of the genre. That is to say that there is no resource gathering and no base building. You simply have a bunch of different units, all vehicular, under your command. You also sometimes have units that can produce other units, most commonly aircraft carriers which can, of course, launch aircraft. Yes, given that his game focuses on the naval battles of the Pacific in World War II it mostly deals with ship (including submarine) and air combat.

You can direct your units’ targets, behaviors, and all of that, to some degree, both in game and by using a real time tactical map. You can also hop into any of these vehicular units and either observe or take over the controls yourself. The first person controls are mostly fairly arcadey though their are occasional simmy features thrown in. For example, the menu to manage assigning crew to repair damage to your ship is unlike anything I’d seen outside of a sim for years. Still, it all works out easily enough as long as you spend more time managing your units than of playing them.

“PT boat versus heavy cruiser, I wonder how this will turn out.”

Of course, like a lot of RTS games the single player campaign is far from the entire experience. Instead, you’re thrown into very specific scenarios with very specific units and objectives. I’m over half way through the single player campaign and ever since I put it down I’ve been pining for more. Despite the short campaign there are a number of single player “challenges” to play through as well.

Online is where this game (apparently) shines though, letting you and potentially three partners duke it out with up to four other people in anything goes, all units on the table, massive battles in and over the Pacific. The online is what originally got me interested in this game in the first place after reading recounts of some of the awesome, epic battles people were having over Live. I’m sure hardly anyone is playing it these days (especially with it’s sequel already out) and those who do are probably gods but I might end up giving it a try. I’m trying to burn through this one though, not making any special efforts for achievements or anything else before it’s on to the next game. At the very least it seems that my experience so far has bumped Battlestations: Pacific into my wish list.

The Tale of Garn Chapter 10

Warning: potential side quest spoilers ahead!

From Garn’s recollections:

Farm Hand

After another few days spent in Anvil I felt that I had worn my welcome and decided to ride back towards the east. As I rode slowly out of the Anvil gates I noticed a farmer woman tending to her crops, only the way she was doing so caught my eye. The woman was violently swinging her hoe with a deep hatred in her eyes. I slowly approached, at first curious about exactly what (or who?) she might be swinging at in such a manner. It turned out it was indeed just the soil. The woman noticed me and looked up, at first with the same angry expression though it quickly changed into a much friendlier one. She politely asked me if I was an adventurer and if I was available for work.

“No, I have no idea why he would have wanted to leave you.”

Curious about whether or not this related to her strange demeanor I inquired further. The woman, she told me her name was Maeva, explained that her husband, no longer content with a boring life of farming, had stolen an enchanted weapon, a mace named Rockshatter, from her and abandoned her to join a gang of local bandits. The weapon was apparently a family heirloom and she was looking for someone to get it back for her. She was offering a surprising amount of gold coin as a reward so I agreed to assist her despite it seeming like a somewhat trivial task. She told me that the gang makes the nearby ruins of Fort Strand their headquarters and that I’d most likely find her husband and her mace there. She provided no hint of concern for her estranged husband’s safety.

Beneath the ruins of Fort Strand lay a twisting maze of crumbling passageways and rooms. The gang the farmer woman had described was quite a bit larger than I had first assumed though I was able to slay most of them without much effort as I slowly worked my way through the corridors. When I finally reached the bottom level of the fort I faced quite a tough battle against the inner-circle of bandits there which including one wielding Rockshatter. In the end I stood victorious. I took the mace and returned back to Whitmond Farm.

Maeva was not happy to hear about her husband’s death but didn’t seem to be in a great deal of grief over it either. She handed me a small coin purse and mentioned that another local farmer, Thorley Aethelred at Shardrock Farm, might also have work for me.

“Wildlife sucks.”

As I was headed his way anyway I paid Thorley a visit. Shardrock Farm was a quaint little farm with several animal pins nestled next to a small pond with a grand view of the northern hills. Thorely was startled, drawing a short sword and yelling that he had nothing of value when first casting eyes upon me. After I explained that I had heard he needed work he chuckled and explained to me that while he has little trouble in his area his sheep had recently been harassed by a group of mature West Weald Bears. This particular type of bear, he explained, was far too tough for him to take care of himself. I had come across this type of bear in my previous travels and understood his situation. He had little to offer me but after showing me some of the possessions he’d part with in return for the work I found an ancient tome of sorcery that I thought might make it worth the effort.

“I’ll never go camping again after this quest.”

Thorley wasn’t exaggerating about the bears, they were incredibly vicious beasts – probably the toughest I’d faced yet. Luckily they were spread apart enough that I was able to heal myself and summon fresh assistance between skirmishes. After slaying the final bear and preparing its pelt to bring back to the farmer as evidence he rewarded me and sent me on my way, mentioning to me that I might want to check with Slythe Seringi at the nearby Shetcombe Farm.

Upon reaching Shetcombe Farm I discovered it to be thoroughly abandoned. The farmhouse itself offered little clue to the farmer’s whereabouts at first until I discovered a note – a page ripped from Slythe’s journal. The journal entry on this page painted a picture of a troubled man who blamed all of the troubles of late, not the least of which the Emperor’s assassination, on his god, the so called Sunken One, being displeased with mankind. Slythe noted that he believed that The Sunken One perhaps needed an offering to appease it as in years past when his father before him saw to the very same task. It seemed as if Slythe has taken a collection of his valuables to a nearby site to make this offering.

I darted to my steed and galloped off through his fields and into the surrounding wilderness. Soon I discovered an old cave entrance that looked like it had been freshly disturbed. The path leading into it suggested that it was either the place I was looking for or I was about to be wandering into the middle of a bandit hideout. I drew my sword and raised my torch and cautiously crept into the cave, which soon opened up into a fairly large cavern filled with dusty, twisting passages.

“A sample of page 2 of Slythe’s journal.”

After slaying another already rather agitated monster I knew I must be in the right place and that Slythe had been here, perhaps even only moments ago. Soon I discovered another page torn from his journal. This entry seems to recount his dangerous journey through the caverns – one that he apparently barely survived. At this point the outlook didn’t look too good.

“Where’s your god now?!”

I continued on through the maze of rocky passages, battling the occasional cave dwelling monster until I finally found him. Laying face down near in a wide passage lay the body of Slythe Seringi. The apparent offering, a small sack with a lackluster assortment of gold pieces and poor quality gemstones – most likely his entire life savings, lay by his side. Clinched in his hand lay a final journal entry. It explained that he had been ambushed before being able to make his offering to The Sunken One. I briefly thought to myself about Slythe’s mental state before I was interrupted by the sound of rocks shifting behind me – a cave in?

I quickly turned to find my point of exit as to prepare for my escape yet it wasn’t a cave in that I saw at all. It seems as if The Sunken One was real after all, though not a god per say, but as an atronach. I know little of atronach except that, like many of the creatures I’ve learned to summon, they are daedra and they are often quite fearsome. I pulled my sword from my back just as the fiend roared with rage and shot a shocking bolt of energy in my direction. I parried its giant rock arm as it swung powerfully down towards me and cleaved my blade heavily into it. It swung its other massive arm causing me to jump backwards and roll to the ground to avoid it. I then unleashed upon it with a flurry of my own magics, soon bringing the creature to an end.

“Oh shit, here he his…”

I suppose I’ll never know if this creature was really The Sunken One that Slythe and his family before him and feared and honored as a god but if so vengeance was now theirs. I gathered up Slythe’s would-be offering as payment for my troubles and began to backtrack. I had second thoughts about leaving Slythe’s body deep in this cavern eventually to be eaten by the rats and spiders. Instead I drug his corpse out of the cavern, slung him on my horse, and eventually deposited him back into his house. I was hopeful that a friend or, at the very least, a guard, would find him soon enough and give him a proper burial.

I knew one thing – I’d had enough of farm life for awhile. It was time to ride back towards the east as originally planned.

At this point thanks in large part to purchasing training at every available opportunity I had managed to make it up to level 21. Hopefully in another 9 or 10 levels I’ll be at the point where the vast majority of the non-leveled creatures I run into will stop kicking my ass.