Hey all, since I just reached a pointless even number for my post count, I thought it befitting that I blog about it. Because that's what I do. Except it's usually about old games that nobody has heard of. While I am not the most prolific poster on Giant Bomb, I would hope that at the very least people are capable of recognizing my avatar/username. I've been here since the start, after all. But enough semantic bullshit. Here is what has been happening with me, for those who care, in bullet points:
I started school. This means that I have significantly less time to play games than I did in the summer, where it was pretty much all old games all the time, the fruits of which can be seen in my previous two blog things.
Similarly, I really don't feel like playing any old RPGs at the moment. There's always an inconvenience here, or a janky spot there, or some sort of totally unfair overly difficult garbage that prevents me from really getting invested (See: Temple of Elemental Evil, Icewind Dale 2. Pretty much everything else as well. )
My plan of replaying all of the Resident Evil series is in motion, albeit somewhat stuttered motion. The thing is, I'm not especially sure what I would write in a blog, so I'm not quite sure if I will write anything or not. Suggestions?
It's nice to see that all the nonsense about subscription has cooled down. The bombcast has been saved, so hopefully there will be other things to discuss on the forums.
Man, Majesty is pretty awesome, albeit frustrating on the harder maps when your success basically boils down to dumb luck. Wish I had a good enough computer to play the second one. Maybe I'll blog about it. Maybe not.
Or maybe I'll just start catching up to modern games that I haven't played yet, like Bayonetta. I still have yet to finish Devil May Cry 4, too.
Or hell, maybe I'll try to beat Ninja Gaiden Black. (this is a joke.)
September 11. Something something.
Aaaannd, that's pretty much it. I'm not attaching it to the forums.
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Or: I continue to play old games of slightly less questionable merit.
Yeah. So remember how I made a blog thing two weeks ago where I showed you all the questionable games I had encountered recently? Remember how it had part 1 in the title? Well I finally am getting around to part 2, because when I tried to launch Stalker it gave me an error message in German and Arx Fatalis isn't giving a very good first impression. So, in other words, I have nothing better to do than record videos using DOSBox's internal codec. Once again, these are initial impressions, so take these with a grain of salt. Or maybe a teaspoon of salt.
Wizardry 7
Wizardry 8 is probably one of the best games I have played within recent memory. Even with its problems of overly slow pacing and Systematic Level Scaling Syndrome (also known as: Oblivion's Disease), I still found a game that hearkened back to the old school without being an overly difficult and deliberately primitive fauxback. Well, I have also managed to get my hands on Wizardry 7 which came out in 1992 (as opposed to Wizardry Gold, the somewhat embarrassing Windows 95 port of W7 that came out 4 years later). My initial impression is very much one of recognition, but there's also the hint of an era where it was ok to be overly hard and overly obscure (i.e. every western RPG before 1997), which doesn't sound like my cup of tea. In any case, it's at least markedly better than anything I encountered in my previous blog. Especially Realms of Arkania... Ugh.
Also, apparently Psionics are crap in this game? Well, guess I will have to start over. I didn't show you the game's absolutely terrible character creator, but needless to say it's not the speediest armadillo in the herd. 6/10 chance of me ever deciding to try and play this seriously.
Heroes of Might and Magic II
Really, this is cheating, since Heroes II is not a game I have come upon recently, nor is it bad in any real sense. But here's a video anyways:
I really don't know why things like movement are so laggy. In any case, it's not indicitive of actual gameplay. Oh, and 10/10. Would play again.
Eye of the Beholder
Continuing the weird first person dungeon crawling bender I have had recently, we come upon one of the two pre-Baldur's Gate D&D game series that actually matter. (The other being the Gold Box games such as Pool of Radiance.) From what I can tell, Eye of the Beholder is significantly more action oriented than any of these other games because it's in real time, and most of the enemies can be cheesed through liberal use of sidestepping. Other than that though, EotB seems to, once again, be heavily puzzle focused and if I plan on playing it seriously I will no doubt have to consult a walkthrough. Nonetheless, it at least seems promising. Also, on a totally weird note, this game and its sequels was developed by Westwood, who went on to make Dune 2 and then the Command and Conquer series. Who knew?
Chances of playing seriously 7/10. Seriously. It hasn't bludgeoned me over the head with old game tropes yet. But then again, I could just play Might and Magic VI again.
Ultima Underworld series
While I don't tell you where I find most of these games for a reason (i.e. the legality is questionable), nothing quite confuses me as my obtainment of these two games. Literally, when I typed in Ultima Underworld on Google, the second result (after the wikipedia article of course) was an abandonware site. While I have no idea whatsoever of the actual legality of Abandonware, it saved me the trouble of going through... other means. Like buying the floppy disks off Amazon for around $50. But I should really shut up right now, in case what I am saying could get me in trouble. Anyways, the Ultima Underworld games are considered direct predecessors to the Elder Scrolls series, and that's pretty much true, being that they are the first real free-roaming RPGs that aren't strictly linear (also, UU came out two years before The Elder Scrolls Arena). While both games use the same engine, UU2 seems to have a more defined structure with more defined goals. That's a good thing in my case, as aimless wandering does bad things to me (See: why I can't get anywhere close to finishing Morrowind). In any case, take a look at the video of the first game, which epitomizes how I have played it so far:
Regardless, I really dig the style of these games, and while the first one is a 5/10, the second one is more of a 7/10. Proto-Oblivion indeed. Oh, and you know how I mentioned Arx Fatalis at the start? That game is a deliberate throwback to these games, right down to the clunky user interface. It will take some more playing before I can really tell you anything meaningful about that game, so I won't delve into it.
I initially wanted to do Jagged Alliance again, as it's not quite as bad as it was when I played it on DS last year, but it won't record for some reason. In any case, it's still not super great. I also wanted to do Tie Fighter, but that game is far too revered and my knowledge of the genre is far too minuscule for me to mess with that particular Hydra.
Coming up next: Maybe one of those games. Maybe I will try Baldur's Gate again, since playing it with the BG2 version of the Infinity Engine at 1920x1080 makes it exponentially better. Maybe I will actually play modern games for once.
Hello all. As you might remember from my last blog, I was on the cusp of finishing Wizardry 8. And so I did. Needless to say, the last 15 or so hours were about as good as the rest of the game, although I admit that it started getting a little stale by the end. But enough talk of modern games that don't require extensive workarounds to function properly, this blog in particular is about all of the not... so... great... games that I have encountered on my path within the last few months, specifically for DOS (It's ok Deus Ex, your terrible first impression will come soon enough). Ok, so they might actually be great, but I wouldn't know it because they don't give especially great first impressions. so take what I say with a grain of salt.
X-COM Apocalypse
As you might know, I encountered X-COM UFO Defense earlier this year and was extremely impressed with what I found. It was compelling, addictive, and induced plenty of other advertising buzz words. It also has the misfortune of being the best game in the series, despite being the first one. Terror From the Deep is literally just UFO Defense but harder and underwater, so it gets a pass for at least not screwing anything up. Unfortunately, there was another X-COM game that actually tried to be different... and succeeded in doing so before Microprose said "Fuck it, let's do some spinoffs, after which we will go out of business because they are crap and 2K will buy up the name and make a game that isn't even tangentially connected to any of the others"
But I'm going off topic here. It's not that X-COM Apocalypse is a bad game. It just has the misfortune of not being better than it's predecessors ( See: Heroes of Might and Magic IV). What makes it not as good? Firstly, the feel is off. While the first and second games were very much a "Kill or be killed" style of strategy game, Apocalypse is far more lenient. I could go into how a single city isn't nearly as good as THE ENTIRE WORLD or how the interface is pretty bad or how the future tech is kind of lame, but here's a video I recorded instead. Oooh Shiny!
Chances of me playing any more? 6/10. It's not awful by any means. It's just not as good. Also, as you saw in the video the Aliens look like muppets.
One Must Fall 2097
Remember the early 90s? I sure as hell don't. But apparently Street Fighter II was "the bomb" and "totally bodacious dude". Thus came plenty of other fighting games, from the revered, to the ironically revered. But what I had never heard of up until a few months ago was a PC only fighting game called One Must Fall, which was published by Epic, when it was called EpicMegaGames, which is a pretty awesome company name that is also very early 90s. It consists of Americanime Pilots beating the shit out of each other in giant robots... that still look about as big as characters in every other fighting game. There is also a tournament mode that has you progressing with one pilot and upgrading a single craft. The game itself isn't especially deep or... good, but what makes it hilarious is not just the presentation (which basically makes me think that the developers had just seen gundam or voltron for the very first time and their minds were BLOWN), but the awesomely catchy (once again, early 90s) Techno theme song. Speaking of which, you can catch it in this video!
Chances of me playing any more? ?/10. That theme song is so damn catchy. And the game itself is freeware!
Realms of Arkania: Blade of Destiny
Let me be clear: I have made many a bad purchasing decision in the past. I bought Far Cry 2 after all. But at least I could play Far Cry. The same cannot be said for Realms of Arkania, which I bought in a pack along with its sequel for $6 on Good Old Games (what can I say? It was $6. That's like a lunch). Based on a nigh unspellable German RPG system that is basically D&D to our european friends (except it makes 2nd Edition AD&D look like child's play by comparison) and also featured in the more recent Drakensang (have not played). While I have been to Germany recently and admire both its efficiency and its cleanliness (as well as the part where people don't snarl at you when they find out you can only speak english like a certain baugette and cheese eating country), I am not a fan of German games. Settlers of Catan both bores and infuriates me, while Carcassone just... bores me. Oh, you meant video games? Well, I never played Gothic, so I can't speak for that, but I can speak for this game, in that it's totally impenetrable. Maybe it's my D&D playing mind. Maybe it's that the game doesn't tell you a goddamn thing and I had to read the manual several times to get through the act of character creation. In any case, what little of the combat I have managed to encounter is boring anyways, and while there might be a good game buried underneath all this stuff, I'm not going to be able to find it with my feeble brain. Here's some videos. Of pain.
Chance of me ever playing again? 4/10. Maybe I'll sit down and try my best to play this game. Maybe I will do that with a much better title instead.
Your hope drained? Your countenance dour? Fear not! For the next time I bother to do this (that's why there's a part 1 in the title), I take a look at games... that are slightly less confusing.
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Let's get something out of the way right now: There is no actual revenge in this thread. But since it's the first game I have blogged about since the 1 year anniversary of me
Yes. I will compare this game to Might and Magic several times. doing this stupid crap, I think it deserved a better title. Oh, and let's get something else out of the way: 80's cartoon themes are insanely catchy. You all know what I mean.
Wait, what was I talking about? Oh yeah. Wizardry 8. It's rad. Oh, I'm not allowed to make a blog that short? Ok, fine. Made by the now-defunct (notice a trend?) Sir Tech and released in late 2001, Wizardry 8 represents an end of an era, not just because it's the last game in the series that pretty much created the entire RPG genre (along with Ultima) as we know it, but also because it's the last game of the First-Person-Party-Based-Dungeon-Crawling-RPG subgenre that wasn't an unfinished piece of mediocrity ( Might and Magic IX) or a sadistic, Japanese developed throwback ( Etrian Odyssey, The Dark Spire) that take after the very first games in the genre (i.e. Before it was good). That's pretty dang significant, and even if you dang kids and your dang Mass Effects and what have you don't get it, it's a fairly big deal. Really.
Not pictured: Awesomely, borderline racist voice samples. Much like a lot of the RPGs I like, Wizardry 8 doesn't exactly have an oscar winning screenplay for a story. It merely serves as context for your party to fuck shit up and is at least competent enough to keep me invested in the world. Weirdly enough, the world of Wizardry flaunts its sci-fi themes much, much, much more oververtly than Might and Magic, which at least for 6 and 7 didn't have you fighting robots with overpowered laser guns until the last 5 hours of the game or so. Sadly, you don't get laser guns in Wiz 8, but you do have the opportunity to recruit a robot into your party, which sort of makes up for it. But despite these similarities Wizardry and Might and Magic are very different takes on the same genre. Much like Might and Magic, you create a party with the intention to fuck shit up with it, and if you are crazy you can import a party from Wizardry 7 (which just happens to have came out in 1992). In this aspect alone, Wiz 8 is awesome. There are 15 different classes and 11 different races (really, if you want details on this just take a look at this game's wiki page. It's well made) to choose from to form a party of 6 (8 with NPC characters). The classes manage to differentiate themselves quite nicely, but perhaps the greatest part of character customization is giving your guys voices. The surprising amount of voices, ranging from "generic fantasy" to "borderline racist" are invoked quite often to great effect. Want a Fairy Ninja with a hispanic accent who talks in the 3rd person as if he were narrating an epic adventure? That is possible.
Yes. One of the NPCs that can join your party is a ranger named Sparkle But what is the actual flow of the gameplay? Slow. After the initial dungeon, your party goes down a (long) and difficult (Wiz 8 is unapologetic in it's difficulty, but it's not sadistic) road to the first town, where they get the game's overlying quest (get 3 artifacts and ascend to the cosmic circle) as well as introductions to the two warring factions that will help you reach that goal. (Militaristic Rhino people and Cult-like spider people). Unfortunately, one of my few gripes with Wiz 8 is that practically every quest is required, unless you want to go out of your way to make things difficult. There is also a lot of walking going on in some otherwise empty maps, only to be broken up by combat encounters, which frankly take too long even when the speed is cranked up all the way. The combat itself is probably the greatest part of the game though. It requires a lot of thinking, and unlike plenty of other games, Wiz 8 has status effect spells that work, and without them the combat is significantly harder. Direct Damage spells, by comparison, aren't quite as useful as they should be. But really, it's your upfront melee guys who will be doing most of the damage anyways.
Wizardry 8 is an interesting game. It's difficult, rewarding, and quite slow, and I am still very much excited to finish it. Along with X-COM it represents the kind of game that I recommend with very little concessions. Unfortunately, it's not very easy to find for a decent price, but if you do find it (or *cough* acquire it) I suggest you get it.
Next up: Really, I have no idea. I am going to try to finish this game, and that's going to require some effort.
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Hey all. I am finally back from vacation in Europe, where I not only got to miss all of E3 but also probably see some old buildings... or something like that. But enough of me telling you that Venice is the worst kind of tourist trap compressed into tiny alleyways that is also a maze and smells like sewage. You guys aren't the audience for that.
Some things before I get onto the main part of the blog: What have I missed here on Giant Bomb? I already plan on listening to the several bombcasts that I missed, including the one featuring she-who-must-not-be-named, but what else was there? Did anything cool happen on the forums? Are there any interviews that I should watch?
As the title implies, I started my blog thing a year ago on June 29, but considering I wasn't here, I will celebrate now. Originally conceived as an imitation of my internet friend Video_Game_King's regular blog it has since evolved into... a slightly better quality imitation of that style of blog. Throughout my one year of doing stuff, I have had to deal with the worst kind of retro elitism (See: my Daggerfall Blog.), as well as having the pleasure of discovering some really great games (X-COM) or just played stuff that I would probably have played regardless (Anything with Resident Evil in the title). Admittedly, my standards of quality are fairly uneven as far as playing the game goes. I admit, for example, that I probably should have played more than the beginning of Jagged Alliance before passing judgment... but fuck that game anyways.
Of all the games that I played, several stick out in my mind. Daggerfall, for being perhaps the jankiest game I have ever, ever, ever played. Resident Evil: Code Veronica for not being nearly as good as fans of the series seem to think it is, Metal Gear Solid 2 for being crazy and that being awesome, Thief for being a stealth game that was more enjoyable to play than MGS and Arcanum for wasting my time. Oh, and X-COM. But that's implicit.
But that's that. Hopefully I will have another year of me telling people that their nostalgia gods aren't very good (CoughDeusExCough), and them getting mad about it. See you soon.
Aliens. Spaceships. Stuff like that. If I was writing a 5 paragraph essay, then this part would be the attention getter. I would probably say something provocative right now like "I don't care about Red Dead Redemption, or really anything that Rockstar makes." or "Deus Ex doesn't give a very good first impression" But I'm not. Instead I'm writing a stupid blog type thing about Video Games. This week, one of the most seminal and revered PC games ever released: X-COM. Does it hold up? Did I like it? If you have been reading my status from time to time, you would already know the answer.
And that answer is "Hell yes". For those who are unenlightened, X-COM is a game with some management elements on top of tactical turn-based Strategy. Really, if you want a full on summary of what the game is, you can find more eloquent descriptions on the internets than I could possibly type out. All you need to know is that it was the first game I bought with my steam account, which along with plenty of other old games make excellent blog material. Oh, and I bought Civilization III for a dollar. Even though I don't particularly like Civ. Which makes me almost as bad as Giant Bomb's own Vinny Caravella, except I actually played it for 90 minutes before I decided "yep. It's Civ. I think I will stick to Galactic Civilizations 2 for my obsessive micromanagement needs"
So onto the gameplay. Thankfully, the learning curve for X-COM only took me a few (several) hours to not throw my dudes into the endless pit of misery and despair by having them die over and over again. Frankly, the beginning of UFO Defense is pretty rough. All of your weapons suck, your guys have trouble hitting the enemy, and everyone crumples in one hit, no exceptions. This "shoot first or die" mentality is what distinguishes it for me from say... Jagged Alliance, which is basically a game of inaccurate potshot tag which I despise so very much. No matter what though, losing 2 or 3 dudes per battle in the early game is commonplace until you research armor, when your guys crumple in one hit only 75% of the time! Then power armor lowers that to a mere 40%. I actually like it though. It's very... strategic, if also occasionally forcing me to reload a save. In any case, the gameplay works well and is generally awesome.
Once I overcame the learning curve and started researching better weapons (i.e. Laser Rifles), the difficulty became much more manageable (but still fairly tough) even though certain enemies are pretty much the worst thing ever. Basically, Enemy Mind Controllers are stupid cheap until you start researching psionics yourself, which I was lucky enough to obtain fairly early on in the game through the capture of an alien leader... but one thing that will never stop being cheap is the enemies that will turn your guys into zombies with only one hit, killing them instantly. That is pretty much the biggest gripe I have, since they also have a ton of movement.
The management end gives, at the very least, a good facade that you are in charge of a multinational alien stomping organization, although where I am now money has stopped being an issue, and therefore any need for me to try to balance my budget is less than necessary. If I have any gripe here, it's that there are occasional long stretches of nothing, but that's not very often.
Then what do I not like about X-COM, if anything? I think that the weapon balance is fairly off kilter, being that anything without an auto shot is inferior to anything with one, which is why you will never, ever, ever, ever use the heavy laser or the pistol (which leads to the problem of me only using auto shot because it's always the best choice). Frankly, everyone in my squad uses heavy plasma at this point, being that all the enemies use it anyways so ammo is plentiful, along with a stun bomb and the blaster launcher, which is one of the single best weapons ever in any strategy game.
In conclusion, X-COM is rad. No, seriously. I recommend it to anyone with a taste for strategy games. I should admit here that I haven't yet invaded the alien base on mars and beaten the game, but unless it's radically different in the endgame, I feel comfortable blogging about it. 23 hours seems enough, don't you think? I will probably also get Terror from the Deep when I'm done with this, even though it's more of an expansion than an actual new game. To those in the know, what about Apocalypse? I hear it's crap, but I'd rather hear it personally. As a reward for reading this block of text, have some videos recorded by yours truly of a terror mission, which are the hardest mission types in the game.
Greetings my good people. Even though I am currently working my way through Persona 2 Innocent Sin (i.e. the one that only came out in Japan and has Hitler), I figured you all deserved some sort of an update from me. Thus, here are some videos of games that I considered, at some point, to do a blog thing about recorded through DOSbox's internal video codec. Unfortunately, music for this codec only works if certain sound cards are used, so movies may occasionally not have music. Otherwise, enjoy!
X COM UFO Defense
Master of Magic
Might and Magic: World of Xeen
Command and Conquer: Red Alert
Well, there you go. Please note that some of my better videos were too long for Youtube, and I really don't feel like cutting them up in Windows Maker. What you see is what you get. Also, I will probably write a blog about X Com next week or so. Anticipate it.
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You can take this blog as a message that I have finally given up on Arcanum. 20 some hours later, the problems I stated in my impressions blog have become much
That's it. I give up. Sorry to those who wanted otherwise. harder to ignore than they were initially. Because the gameplay has yet to change for the better, and the story is beginning to squander its own potential, I would like to make some statements as to why I quit.
Unlike Jade Empire, which was immediately disconcerting, Arcanum gave a decent first impression. The character creation system looked deep, the setting and story looked promising, and a decent pedigree existed. However, I already explained why the character development aspect is bunk (and I continue to support that statement after several more hours of play.), so allow me to explain some other things that really drained my patience. The lack of autosave is an issue, especially for someone like me, who saves sparsely because I assume that the autosave will cushion me if it comes to that and hates having to make up 2 hours of gameplay because of some fluke critical hit. Yes, maybe I do come from the pampered generation of post-1998 gamers who expect it, but Arcanum came out in 2001 and therefore there is no excuse for why it doesn't exist. Baldur's Gate 2 had a fairly reliable autosave and came out a year earlier. I'm sorry if this sounds like bitchy whining, but it is an issue that I have trouble with, and it's probably an issue that others have had trouble with.
However, there are some other issues that the game has other than the autosave (or lack thereof). As I tried to play my character as a good guy who tried to talk his way out of violence, it's disconcerting to see that a single wrong dialog choice (that, in turn, looks just as viable as all the other dialog choices) can mess up an entire quest with no "I have changed my mind" style coverup. This, combined with said lack of autosave led me to resolving quests in manners that I found unsatisfactory because I didn't want to replay the last hour of gameplay.
In turn, the story hasn't really progressed in any meaningful direction since I wrote my impressions. A dozen or so hours later, I'm still trying to find a clan of Dwarves that was banished somewhere, and there is a bad guy who claims he will return and destroy the world. And apparently I'm the chosen one. From what I have read (yes, I spoiled the plot for myself, because I at least wanted to see how it ends): The Dwarves were banished to the void to help the bad guy come back. The bad guy isn't the same guy people think he is. I'm not actually the chosen one, because the guy who I'm supposed to be a reincarnation of is still alive. At the end you either defeat the bad guy or you join him. But all of those things aren't revealed until the last 5 or so hours of the game... soooo...
Another thing I found when I was researching was that I still have a looong way to go. Considering that I beat Dragon Age in a pithy 34 hours, and Fallout 1 in 10 hours, that should mean something. Unless the gameplay suddenly becomes above mediocre, or something about the story becomes interesting, I'm done. There really aren't any truly memorable characters in Arcanum, because even the ones who are important enough to have voice acting rarely have anything to say other than "If you keep on killing innocent people I will get mad and leave". I simply don't want to use any more of my time playing a game that I don't especially like, and since it's not a job, I have the liberty to do so. There were some parts that I enjoyed, and I got my $6 out of it, so in closing, I will direct you to a video review of the game by Greg Kasavin, who's sentiments echo mine, except without the quitting part, because that guy had the balls to actually finish it. He has hair in this video too!:
But enough with the doom and gloom! Here are some other things. I am considering making T. Hawk my main in SSFIV, in a case of choosing him ironically only to discover that I am pretty good with him. He hits like a truck and takes hits like one too, although like Zangeif he has trouble with fireballs. For the record, my main in vanilla SFIV was Ryu, so I could afford to have some variety. I also made this little chart when I was bored in my graphic design class at school Take it for what it is, but for the most part I agree with most of where I put everything in hindsight. And that is that.
Next up: Baldur's Gate, X-Com, and Star Wars Jedi Knight. Expect at least one to show up eventually.
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In order to pretend that I can, in fact, do these kind of things semi regularly, I figure my 5 or so loyal readers deserve an update on the game that I said I was going to play
Pretentious high fantasy subtitle ahoy! when you voted for me to play it. For those who don't remember, it was Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura, which despite having a totally lame, yet totally necessary subtitle is a game that was made by Troika, which was made up of Ex Fallout 1 developers and tanked after 3 games because their expertise of development was a little too hardcore for the average person. It's main draw is it's "Fantasy world in the middle of an industrial revolution" setting, which is actually pretty cool, but we'll get to that later. Here are my impressions so far after about 10+ hours:
Don't let the awesome gentlemanly portraits fool you, the character creation system is the definition of bunk Like any good non-party based RPG from the late 90s to early 2000s, Arcanum has a stupid deep character customization system. However, the game is a textbook case of " Bad Character Builditis", which affects all RPGs to some degree, but is extremely obvious here. First of all, experience isn't some arbitrary number (Hey, that could be an alt account for me!). Instead you get it every time you hit something. While I can commend Troika for trying something different, this leads to one of many imbalances: Melee characters with high DEX and STR are going to level up about 90 billion times faster than either gunslingers (While I'm at it: Guns are pretty weak and ammo is surprisingly rare, which screws gunner characters over even more) or straight mages. Leveling up is good, but the way point distribution is done could have been handled a lot better. You get one point per level up with 2 points every 5 level ups. The problem is that there is no division between spending points on improving your stats, improving your skills, or learning a new spell/tech recipe, which leads to a lot of confusion on my part on what to increase. There is a reason why this stuff is compartmentalized. On a side note, Charisma isn't totally useless, as it determines how many party members you can have! However, it's ugly red-headed stepchild "Beauty" is. All it does is determine initial NPC reaction, which can be easily alleviated by having high enough charisma. Bleh. For the record, my actual character is a half-elf melee fighter with a little defensive magic thrown in for good measure. He works. I assume thief characters would work as well.
Another progressive/absolutley stupid and obviously not playtested idea was to make your "magic" and your "stamina" gauges be the same thing. In layman's terms, this translates to: Every time you cast a spell your stamina goes down. When enemies hit you your stamina goes down. When your stamina reaches zero you fall down and are totally vulnerable to all baddies. If you can't tell, this doesn't exactly encourage people to be mages. Unfortunately, tech characters perhaps even get a shorter end of the stick. Not only can they not use magical weapons and armor (i.e. the best weapons and armor in the game), but their resistance to magic extends to friendly spells as well, which means no magical healing. Allow me to emphasize: That is bad. What do they get in exchange? Tech characters can craft some pretty nifty items, a task that, in the end, should be delegated to a party member.
"But Arbitrary!" you say "You aren't talking about the part of Arcanum that makes it a weird cult classic!". You are right. But before I talk about that, let me tell you about how the combat sucks. No, it's not aggressively bad like Jade Empire, but it is the bastard child of Fallout and Baldur's Gate, having the flaws of both and the tactical elements of neither. You can do real time, which is too fast to be of any strategic merit, and Turn Based, which despite being slower still has no strategic merit. It's quite simple: You click on dudes. They die. The end. It's not great. The combat? Not so great. Alright, then why am I still playing this shitty game? Because, despite the above flaws, the world and story of Arcanum are incredibly interesting. Sadly, the developers aren't exactly Bioware when it comes to quality of supporting characters, but there are plenty of dialog options that let you be as much of a smooth gentleman as humanely possible, which I immediately approve of. Of course, all the "evil" options inevitably end with you murdering someone, but that can't be helped. The morality isn't quite as black and white as some other games, but there is still totally an alignment meter and you can still totally be a dick. That's besides the point. It's good stuff and I really like it. The non-combat gameplay itself can easily be compared to fallout, which makes sense considering the lineage. That means giant cities that you have to wander around in in order to find quests. It's a pain, but I forgive them. Also, no Autosave, which sucks and I don't forgive them for not including it.
In conclusion, I can already see why everyone says that Arcanum is a deeply flawed game. However, I can also see why people like it so much. It's oddly engaging, despite its flaws and considering it's $6 on Good Old Games, unless something totally awful happens, I feel justified in my purchase. Expect me to blog again when I am done. Thanks to those who soldiered through and read this entire thing. I promise the actual blog will be a lot smaller and more specific.
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So the rest of you wouldn't have to. Since Game Fuel is once again gone, instead of leaving a highly caffeinated and probably-bad-for-you hole in our lives the people at Pepsi have already launched a new "Dewmocracy" push with 3 new flavors. Those who remember the last time they did this (i.e. right after the Halo 3 game fuel thing was done) remember that there were 3 flavors, all of which kind of tasted like generic fruity sweetness. Of those three, Voltage (the one that won) probably had the most distinct flavor and, in my opinion, tasted the best. There was also that weird diet purple flavor that lasted like 3 months and tasted bad, and it took me a second to remember that it even existed.
Today however, I don't come to you to talk about old flavors (Pitch Black 2 was really good. That is all) but to tell you all that you probably don't have to change your soda consuming habits any time soon. Let's go through each one by one, shall we?
Am I depraved for writing a blog about these three stupid, stupid sodas? Maybe.
Mountain Dew White Out
Billed as "smooth citrus". In reality, White Out kind of tastes like piss. No, that isn't exactly descriptive so I will say that it tastes like Vault (i.e. Coke's attempt at making a Mtn Dew equivalent.). If you have ever tasted Vault then you know that it fails to be either distinctive or delicious, and ends up just tasting like generic lemon/lime (i.e. Squirt gone bad). Sadly, as of this bloggering it is currently in the lead, which I find disappointing.
Mountain Dew Typhoon
Having been in an actual Typhoon , I can assure you that this beverage isn't hurricane flavored. It's billed as "Tropical", which is secret code for "Fruit Punch". There's not much more to say then that. You have probably tasted some facet of Typhoon before, and I thought it was ok, if somewhat indestinctive.
Mountain Dew Distortion
First of all, I think that this soda having the exact same color as regular dew (which also falls under my personal designation of "piss") is a bad, bad idea. If it was like, Emerald Green or something then that would help a ton, because I didn't realize that it was an actual separate flavor at first. But whatever. Billed as "Lime Blasted", Distortion is basically the bastard child of regular Mountain Dew and Sprite/7up/Sierra Mist, which works, oddly enough. The flavor is somewhat less mild than the usual "HEY MOTHERFUCKER, DO YOU LIKE HIGH FRUCTOSE CORN SYRUP?" flavor I get from this kind of soda. It's good, and tastes like artificial lime flavoring, which I approve. Your milage may vary however, as several other kids in my school stated that they disliked it.
In conclusion, I'm really not sure why I did this blog anyways, but if you are a depraved individual who can't get by on coke alone, then the DEWmocracy trio probably won't help. I like Distortion the best, but think that it has no chance in hell of winning the poll, so I will probably stockpile a few in a corner or something and that will be that.
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