Not Playing: Mass Effect 3

Remember when I said I was going to play Mass Effect 3 next?

I'll get around to it soon. Valve soon.

Blog Update

In December last year I discovered that the formatting of certain posts was not displaying correctly in Internet Explorer. Images and text were badly misplaced.

I’ve now gone through and edited every wonky post, hopefully fixing the problem. Everything should display properly now in IE. I've also updated a lot of the 'Now Playing' posts by breaking up the text more so they're a little easier on the eyes to read.

I’ve also changed the archive links so they don’t take up half the page.

Now Playing: Fall of the Samurai

FotS is a standalone expansion to Shogun 2 set during the period of the Meiji Restoration, as pro-Shogunate and pro-Emperor forces clash for control of Japan. It’s set across a much smaller time frame than both the base game and the Rise of the Samurai DLC campaign, with up to 24 turns per year.

The expansion brings with it a selection of new features and improvements both to the campaign and battle modes. The game, even on medium settings (I really need a new PC for Rome 2) still looks rather fantastic, particularly the combat animations, and the new 40v40 unit battles create some extremely intense, epic and bloody engagements.

The campaign map has been overhauled and expanded, and includes new features such as railways and naval bombardments (which can also be called down on the battle map to devastating effect). There are also the most modern unit types yet seen in a TW title such as Gatling guns and torpedo boats. Some units even allow for a degree of first person aiming and firing – rarely useful in large scale engagements, but a fun little bonus nonetheless.

Like in Shogun 2, the campaign and UI art is wonderful, and the soundtrack is nice too. There are new technology trees, agent types and a new, improved form of the Realm Divide mechanic that sees you either choose to stand alone, or become a part of a coalition of clans.

Unit variety, one of the major criticisms of Shogun 2 is improved here, with a selection of traditional and modern units. Playing as a pro-Emperor clan, I initially attempted to remain as traditional as possible, but as the campaign progressed and the modern weapons became increasingly powerful and deadly on the field of the battle, my full traditional armies slowly included more and more of the modern units.

That’s not to say it becomes entirely impossible to complete a campaign utilising only the traditional spear, bow and sword units - especially with carefully selected terrain and ambush tactics - but taking castles becomes increasingly difficult and results in heavy losses.

In this respect, FotS perfectly captures the essence of its title - modernization is inevitable and ultimately necessary, and the campaign side is a constant balancing act between introducing these modern innovations both on and off the field of battle and keeping your population (who are naturally resistant to such change and foreign influence) happy. Battle AI is improved as are campaign AI and diplomacy.

Criticisms? The agent and general skill trees feel a little less fleshed out than in Shogun 2. I miss the agent and unit recruitment videos and also the pre-battle speeches (although I must admit I often skipped these once I’d seen them a few times). It seemed the Battle AI was often psychically aware of where I’d targeted my offshore bombardment and quickly scooted out of the way which is irritating to say the least.

Faction variety, as in Shogun 2, is rather limited due to the setting, and of course, given the short time frame and the focus on a single country, the setting itself may be a negative for those seeking more variety in terms of terrain and combat styles.

In addition to the single player campaign, FotS also has a new multiplayer mode which I’ve not tried out yet and a series of historical battles from the period. Overall, Fall of the Samurai is an incredibly slick, polished and technically impressive title. I’m not overly enamoured with the gun-line style warfare which is probably why I didn’t enjoy Empire or Napoleon as much as the other TW titles, but FotS won me over in this regard. In fact, I’d probably rate it as the best overall Total War title yet on release. For an expansion, FotS offers potentially hundreds of hours of gameplay alone and is well worth the investment.

8/10

The Other Side of the Sky

So it snowed. That happened.

I was planning on completing Mass Effect 3 a second time to talk about it, but every time I load it up to start, I feel horrible and I have to stop myself. I’ve been playing Fall of the Samurai instead, so I guess I’ll cover that next. But I’ll definitely get around to ME3 after that.

Probably.

In writing news I’ve started a substantial edit of a project from a couple of years ago – HS. The plan is to complete that within a couple of months and then start work on some other stuff. The ultimate goal is to have three more polished novels completed by the end of the year.

Now Playing: The Witcher 2

I began The Witcher 2 having played, yet not completed, its predecessor. Although there were many aspects of The Witcher that intrigued me - the characters, story, setting and combat - the game itself felt horribly paced, and ten or so hours in, I was left increasingly frustrated by what seemed like an endless series of irritating fetch quests and point A to B to C to back to A backtracking with little in the way of plot development.

Essentially, I gave up because I got bored. I said I’d go back and slog my way through it one day. I’d asked around and been told that the game does pick up significantly during its later chapters - providing you have the patience to reach them.

So I was naturally wary of The Witcher 2. There was a lot I liked about the first game, the question was if the developers could take those elements, improve upon them and discard the fluff. When the game in its ‘Enhanced Edition’ form went on sale, I decided to give it a shot, and I discovered the answer was an emphatic YES!

Across the board, The Witcher 2 excels in all areas, leaving not only its predecessor in the shade, but most other games too - hence why I proclaimed it the best game I played in 2012 (although it was originally released on PC in 2011) Graphically, The Witcher 2 is an incredibly good looking game, featuring a variety of lush environments, highly detailed character and creature models and a set of fluid, exciting combat animations.

It has a wonderful soundtrack combined with a great range of in game atmospheric sounds – from swords clashing on the battlefield, to the banter in a village market. On top of this you also have some of the most consistently excellent VA I’ve seen in a game, especially considering its wide cast and variety of characters.

The story avoids the typical ‘an ancient evil rises’ trope that so many other fantasy based games fall into. Instead, it expertly and maturely presents us with a story that features world changing events and the resulting political machinations, but interwoven with a more personal story - a search for truth, friends and justice. And unlike the first game, the story this time is much better paced, keeping you engaged and progressing at a steady rate.

The story also features a branching narrative which can result in the player visiting different locations, interacting with different characters or characters in a new manner, seeing things from an alternative perspective, and even determine the outcome of the game - it’s a trick many games claim, yet few create the sense of importance and impact that decisions in The Witcher 2 manage - many of them weighing upon the player with no clear ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ solution.

The story begins with the assassination of a King, and very quickly Geralt (a Witcher - a professional monster slayer) finds himself drawn into a conflict that will determine the fate of the northern kingdoms, all the while attempting to uncover the mysteries of his own past. The story unfolds over the course of a prologue campaign (which serves as a tutorial section), three large chapters, each set in a new location with new enemies to face (and the second of which can play out very differently depending on your choices in Chapter 1) and a final, satisfying epilogue to wrap things up, but just enough to leave you wanting more - take note, Mass Effect 3.

Alongside the main story quests are many side and optional missions providing a depth and wealth of varied content. There are also enjoyable mini games to take part in - fist fighting, dice and arm wrestling. These quests, as you would expect, come with rewards such as money and gear which can be used to enhance Geralt. Even some seemingly minor, unimportant fetch quests can lead to larger, more complex encounters that would put the ‘main quest’ missions in other games to shame - take note, Skyrim.

As in other RPGs, Geralt levels up and has a skill tree enabling him to enhance his abilities in three distinct areas - combat, magic and alchemy. Experience points are plentiful enough to encourage experimentation, but not enough to simply flood every tree and acquire every ability. Certain abilities can then be further enhanced with the use of mutagens found in the world to further tailor Geralt’s abilities to your liking.

Although I didn’t mind the almost ‘rhythm game’ nature of the combat system in The Witcher, the fighting mechanics in its sequel far surpass it. Even on lower difficulty settings, fights cannot be won through mindless clicking, but through timing, skill and tactics. As you often find yourself facing multiple attackers, you must quickly learn to use every tool at your disposal - there are fast and slow attack types, parries, ripostes and dodges.

Combine those with a variety of bomb types, blade oils and traps, each with varying effects - and even further with the variety of performance enhancing potions you can brew and consume - and you have an engaging, tactical combat system that STILL manages to look bloody cool on top - take note, Assassin’s Creed.

So yeah, it looks, sounds and plays fantastic, with a wealth and depth of content, a strong story and great characterisation. Oh, and some memorable and challenging ‘boss’ fights too. So what are the negatives? Well, Chapter 2 feels a little bloated, with some unnecessary padding and backtracking - although I only played through one of the story paths in Chapter 2, so I’m unsure how well paced the alternative is. Potions feel largely redundant, as you can only use these out of combat - so unless you know what’s around the next corner, you may not use them very often.

This also applies to traps, which take a small moment to lay in a fight and usually aren’t worth the risk. I played through on the default Normal setting, so perhaps on higher difficulties these tools become more important, but in my experience, neither was ever as useful as the simple blade oils. Chapter Three feels rather restrictive and more linear than the previous two, but that’s to be expected. Visiting more locations would have also been nice, because this is a world with a lot of history and detail, and it’s a shame we don’t get to see more of it.

Overall, I couldn’t recommend The Witcher 2 any higher. It’s an incredibly polished and exemplary title. It is rich in detail, deep in content, varied, engaging, comfortably on the right side of challenging and above all else, extremely enjoyable and rewarding to play.

9/10

Work in Progress: WFTD & SOV

WFTD and SOV are now complete. SOV was a largely painless affair. My original draft was surprisingly solid and with a few tweaks and additions here and there, I think it’s now in a fine state. WFTD was a little more challenging, with many internal debates on the ‘right’ way to end the story. A few rewrites later, I ultimately went with my original choices (with a couple of minor tweaks) and the novel was complete, with an additional seven thousand words on top of the original draft.

And with the dawn of the new year, I must now look to my next projects. I’ve accumulated quite a body of work over the last several years that I’ve not really done anything with, so although I have many ideas for new books, I’ve decided to focus instead on taking existing unfinished / unpolished work and editing and rewriting them where necessary.

I have three initial projects in mind - NI, HS, and AO. Each already exits in a draft form, HS in particular shouldn’t require too much work. But NI and AO will require some significant rewrites - NI in particular. I guess I should get started.