There are times when I feel like cursing whoever invented the MOBA. I mean, I don't hate the genre or anything, but I must admit, my opinion on a game has never been improved upon discovering it's a MOBA. It's irrational, I know, but I feel like no one ever deliberately sets out to design a new MOBA. Instead, one just sort of emerges when video game designers find themselves with a diverse cast of colorful characters (or in this case space ships) and no ideas about what to do with them.
Which is unfair, of course. MOBAs are, in fact, the closest video games can get to a team sport. They are territory-control games that reward both tactics and strategy and have a very high skill ceiling. If you're interested in games as an abstract experience, a perpetual test of cunning and skill where your only benchmark for skill is the quality of your opponents. There have been times when I've been tempted by this idea, but honestly, it's a lot of work, and I'd rather spend my energies on other things.
The practical upshot of this is that there is not much "game" to Fractured Space. MOBAs are already a genre that's short on interesting level design, and when you set a MOBA in the vacuum of space, that problem is exacerbated. As near as I can tell, there's only one map - an asteroid field in which you have two opposing starbases and three mines that you can ineffectually try and claim for brief periods of time before they are inevitably taken back by the opposing team.
And since the bot AI is pretty bad, even for a MOBA, I feel like I've already exhausted the possibilities for single player. There aren't even any difficulty settings on the bot matches. You just sort of get thrown into a brawl that you will almost certainly win, because the enemy has no sense of strategy, and win inelegantly, because your allies have no sense of strategy.
I suppose I should try and play online multiplayer. Just really throw myself into the competitive scene. But that is a surefire path to heartbreak.
Then again, just because something has never worked in the past, that doesn't mean it won't work in the future!
Friday, July 28, 2017
Thursday, July 27, 2017
Fractured Space - Initial Thoughts
About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
Fractured Space is an award winning free-to-play space combat game. Fight solo in PvE, in co-op Quick Play or 5-v-5 PvP. Brought to life in the stunning Unreal Engine 4, giants of interstellar conflict fight in spectacular close quarter battles for dominance.
Pick a manufacturer, choose a class and customize your weapon loadouts. Through experience you gain the right to command more ships while earning credits to add them to your fleet. Tailor your craft to your combat preferences with crew and weapon loadout options then take on your specialized role when your interstellar juggernaut warps into battle.
You captain a vessel of unmatched combat authority choosing from an ever increasing number of specialised galactic warships. Understand your own capabilities and that of your team before taking the fight to the enemy. Experience will expand your ability to choose which victories to chase and how to then leverage them. Mastery of a single ship is your first step, dominance in the war for space coming as your knowledge increases.
The composition of your team's fleet is vital to your success. Battles may be fought with firepower but they are won with wits. Your team of five will face an equally prepared, equally skilled, equally ambitious opponent in a ceaselessly transforming fight for control. Your plans will evolve, tactics will shift but as a team you will emerge triumphant. Your individual prowess may be significant but it insignificant next to well organised communication, support and teamwork.
Join us as we throw open our doors on development of a groundbreaking space combat experience. The discussion on strategy is endless; share your war stories, learn from others and become a part of the Fractured Space universe.
Previous Playtime
9 minutes
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This
Fractured Space is now a free-to-play game, but it wasn't when I first acquired it. Strangely enough, though, I got it for free. They were doing one of those "our game is free for the next 48 hours" that people sometimes do.
It's kind of funny. I didn't pay anything for this game, but I still feel a little miffed that it went from paid to free. It's like, I used to have something of measurable value that I didn't pay for, and now I have something of no measurable value that I didn't pay for. I mean, I didn't technically lose anything, but it kind of feels like I did. . .
Anyway, I snatched this game up solely because it was free, because back then I thought getting something for free was a benefit.
Expectations and Prior Experience
I played this game for about nine minutes back when it was in beta. I didn't think very much of it. There weren't very many ships and the only thing you could do with them was online multiplayer battles.
Which, okay, I like spaceships, and I like flying them, but fighting space battles has always felt like a massive chore. The three-dimensional dodging and targeting can be dizzying at its worst, and even at its best, space combat tends to devolve into a long-range slugfest. It's like they made an entire game out of my least favorite part of X3 and Eve: Online.
Then again, I just received a very powerful lesson on going into a game with a bunch of negative assumptions. Maybe I'll wind up really like it. There's always hope.
Fractured Space is an award winning free-to-play space combat game. Fight solo in PvE, in co-op Quick Play or 5-v-5 PvP. Brought to life in the stunning Unreal Engine 4, giants of interstellar conflict fight in spectacular close quarter battles for dominance.
Pick a manufacturer, choose a class and customize your weapon loadouts. Through experience you gain the right to command more ships while earning credits to add them to your fleet. Tailor your craft to your combat preferences with crew and weapon loadout options then take on your specialized role when your interstellar juggernaut warps into battle.
You captain a vessel of unmatched combat authority choosing from an ever increasing number of specialised galactic warships. Understand your own capabilities and that of your team before taking the fight to the enemy. Experience will expand your ability to choose which victories to chase and how to then leverage them. Mastery of a single ship is your first step, dominance in the war for space coming as your knowledge increases.
The composition of your team's fleet is vital to your success. Battles may be fought with firepower but they are won with wits. Your team of five will face an equally prepared, equally skilled, equally ambitious opponent in a ceaselessly transforming fight for control. Your plans will evolve, tactics will shift but as a team you will emerge triumphant. Your individual prowess may be significant but it insignificant next to well organised communication, support and teamwork.
Join us as we throw open our doors on development of a groundbreaking space combat experience. The discussion on strategy is endless; share your war stories, learn from others and become a part of the Fractured Space universe.
Previous Playtime
9 minutes
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This
Fractured Space is now a free-to-play game, but it wasn't when I first acquired it. Strangely enough, though, I got it for free. They were doing one of those "our game is free for the next 48 hours" that people sometimes do.
It's kind of funny. I didn't pay anything for this game, but I still feel a little miffed that it went from paid to free. It's like, I used to have something of measurable value that I didn't pay for, and now I have something of no measurable value that I didn't pay for. I mean, I didn't technically lose anything, but it kind of feels like I did. . .
Anyway, I snatched this game up solely because it was free, because back then I thought getting something for free was a benefit.
Expectations and Prior Experience
I played this game for about nine minutes back when it was in beta. I didn't think very much of it. There weren't very many ships and the only thing you could do with them was online multiplayer battles.
Which, okay, I like spaceships, and I like flying them, but fighting space battles has always felt like a massive chore. The three-dimensional dodging and targeting can be dizzying at its worst, and even at its best, space combat tends to devolve into a long-range slugfest. It's like they made an entire game out of my least favorite part of X3 and Eve: Online.
Then again, I just received a very powerful lesson on going into a game with a bunch of negative assumptions. Maybe I'll wind up really like it. There's always hope.
Hero Siege - 20/20 hours
Once I got my little equipment issue out of the way, Hero Siege proved to be a fun, but mindless twin-stick shooter. I wound up beating the game after a couple more hours, and then spent the rest of my time grinding my character up to maximum level.
I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't necessarily call it "good." The game has basically no plot (there are monsters attacking people, I guess) and while the randomly generated levels have a decent variety to them, none were particularly memorable. But compounding the game's basic blandness is the fact that once you play through on normal difficulty, you need only repeat the pre-boss levels on the higher difficulties.
But you know what, it's all right. Throwing hundreds of fireballs at massive hordes of enemies is oddly relaxing, once you get to the point where you don't have to worry about dying. Even if I didn't understand the late-game mechanics (like, what the intended level range for "hell" versus "inferno" is supposed to be, or why every damned piece of Legendary or Mythic equipment had a level 150 minimum, or literally anything about how the wormholes work), I still got the satisfaction of seeing numbers going up, and that's all that I really care about.
Overall, I'd say that Hero Siege is a game I would gladly play again, and mostly that is thanks to the strengths of its genre - a loot-driven action-rpg with complex character customization is the sort of game I've played many times before and will doubtlessly play many times again. It has its unique quirks, namely a fast-paced twin-stick shooter style and a class list with a couple of eccentric additions like "pirate" and "redneck," but I'm not sure those quirks are a specific draw. It is the variable schedule of rewards combined with a steady sense of forward progress that really makes games like this appealing.
Still, I got through it in just three days, which is amazing for a game that I was convinced I was going to hate. So let that be a lesson to anyone reading this - don't let your misconceptions hold you back, especially if those misconceptions are based on you being a huge idiot and missing, like, one-third of whatever it is you're judging. Maybe it's narrow advice, and maybe it's only useful in retrospect, but that's what I'm taking away from this experience.
I enjoyed it, but I wouldn't necessarily call it "good." The game has basically no plot (there are monsters attacking people, I guess) and while the randomly generated levels have a decent variety to them, none were particularly memorable. But compounding the game's basic blandness is the fact that once you play through on normal difficulty, you need only repeat the pre-boss levels on the higher difficulties.
But you know what, it's all right. Throwing hundreds of fireballs at massive hordes of enemies is oddly relaxing, once you get to the point where you don't have to worry about dying. Even if I didn't understand the late-game mechanics (like, what the intended level range for "hell" versus "inferno" is supposed to be, or why every damned piece of Legendary or Mythic equipment had a level 150 minimum, or literally anything about how the wormholes work), I still got the satisfaction of seeing numbers going up, and that's all that I really care about.
Overall, I'd say that Hero Siege is a game I would gladly play again, and mostly that is thanks to the strengths of its genre - a loot-driven action-rpg with complex character customization is the sort of game I've played many times before and will doubtlessly play many times again. It has its unique quirks, namely a fast-paced twin-stick shooter style and a class list with a couple of eccentric additions like "pirate" and "redneck," but I'm not sure those quirks are a specific draw. It is the variable schedule of rewards combined with a steady sense of forward progress that really makes games like this appealing.
Still, I got through it in just three days, which is amazing for a game that I was convinced I was going to hate. So let that be a lesson to anyone reading this - don't let your misconceptions hold you back, especially if those misconceptions are based on you being a huge idiot and missing, like, one-third of whatever it is you're judging. Maybe it's narrow advice, and maybe it's only useful in retrospect, but that's what I'm taking away from this experience.
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Hero Siege - 9/20 hours
I think I owe Hero Siege an apology. I profoundly misjudged it.
Now, you might be looking at the title of this post, seeing that it is my first post on the game, only one day after I started it, and be thinking "ah, he played the game a little bit more and discovered that he really liked it after all." But no, that's not it. When I say "profound," I mean profound.
See, I decided to try a little experiment. I would play each of the eight classes to the end of the first act, just to see if maybe the problems I had before were due to a poor choice of class. And at first, the results of this experiment seemed to confirm my earlier observations - enemies were unusually tank-y and my damage output was low enough that I had to spend a lot of time backpedaling while I kited a whole line of targets.
But then I gained a few levels and started equipping "superior" and "rare" quality weapons and I discovered something remarkable - I was actually able to advance on enemy hordes. Especially with the melee classes, I could cut through these monsters with only a token resistance.
After seeing this pattern repeat a half dozen times, I revised my theory about the game. I suspect that the trouble I was having with my first character was an unfortunate combination of multiplayer level scaling and simple bad luck in finding powerful equipment. And so, out of curiosity, I created a multiplayer game to check out my previous character's load out . . .
I had absolutely nothing equipped, in any of my equipment slots. Which is odd, because I clearly remembered finding equipment, examining and comparing its statistics, and selling off my spares to the merchant guy. But apparently, I did all of this without ever equipping any of it!
So here I am, a complete jackass, thinking this game has some kind of incredibly brutal difficulty, where monsters take forever to kill, but they only need one or two lucky shots to wipe out the player, and all the while I was trying to beat level 35 content with level 0 equipment.
And I have no idea how this could possibly have happened. I didn't have any particular difficulty in figuring out the menus on my local game. Yet I went 7 hours without even noticing on multiplayer. It's true, I had my friend carrying me that whole time. I actually just thought that he was amazingly good at the game. We'd each be fighting separate hordes and I'd kite mine away from him and subsequently die after only taking out three or four enemies and then I'd call for a revive and he'd tell me to wait a minute and I thought "oh yes, these monsters are really tough, especially with the multiplayer scaling, considering he has to fight my enemies as well." And then, when he did finally come riding to my rescue, I thought, "wow, he handled those monsters like a pro, I sure do wish I was good enough at this game to be more help."
Which isn't to take anything away from my friend or downplay his skill. He got to act 4 of the game with a completely dead-weight teammate. It's just, I played my multiplayer character by myself for all of 10 minutes before I found a level appropriate "mythic" weapon, and once I had it, I started chewing through enemies like they weren't even there. I'd barely have time to register their presence before my ranged attacks reduced them to a fine mist. If I'd been playing at full capacity, we probably would have beaten the game by now.
So there you have it - I goofed up this game as much as it is humanly possible to goof up anything. Keep this anecdote in mind when evaluating my opinions about other games that gave me difficulty.
Now, you might be looking at the title of this post, seeing that it is my first post on the game, only one day after I started it, and be thinking "ah, he played the game a little bit more and discovered that he really liked it after all." But no, that's not it. When I say "profound," I mean profound.
See, I decided to try a little experiment. I would play each of the eight classes to the end of the first act, just to see if maybe the problems I had before were due to a poor choice of class. And at first, the results of this experiment seemed to confirm my earlier observations - enemies were unusually tank-y and my damage output was low enough that I had to spend a lot of time backpedaling while I kited a whole line of targets.
But then I gained a few levels and started equipping "superior" and "rare" quality weapons and I discovered something remarkable - I was actually able to advance on enemy hordes. Especially with the melee classes, I could cut through these monsters with only a token resistance.
After seeing this pattern repeat a half dozen times, I revised my theory about the game. I suspect that the trouble I was having with my first character was an unfortunate combination of multiplayer level scaling and simple bad luck in finding powerful equipment. And so, out of curiosity, I created a multiplayer game to check out my previous character's load out . . .
I had absolutely nothing equipped, in any of my equipment slots. Which is odd, because I clearly remembered finding equipment, examining and comparing its statistics, and selling off my spares to the merchant guy. But apparently, I did all of this without ever equipping any of it!
So here I am, a complete jackass, thinking this game has some kind of incredibly brutal difficulty, where monsters take forever to kill, but they only need one or two lucky shots to wipe out the player, and all the while I was trying to beat level 35 content with level 0 equipment.
And I have no idea how this could possibly have happened. I didn't have any particular difficulty in figuring out the menus on my local game. Yet I went 7 hours without even noticing on multiplayer. It's true, I had my friend carrying me that whole time. I actually just thought that he was amazingly good at the game. We'd each be fighting separate hordes and I'd kite mine away from him and subsequently die after only taking out three or four enemies and then I'd call for a revive and he'd tell me to wait a minute and I thought "oh yes, these monsters are really tough, especially with the multiplayer scaling, considering he has to fight my enemies as well." And then, when he did finally come riding to my rescue, I thought, "wow, he handled those monsters like a pro, I sure do wish I was good enough at this game to be more help."
Which isn't to take anything away from my friend or downplay his skill. He got to act 4 of the game with a completely dead-weight teammate. It's just, I played my multiplayer character by myself for all of 10 minutes before I found a level appropriate "mythic" weapon, and once I had it, I started chewing through enemies like they weren't even there. I'd barely have time to register their presence before my ranged attacks reduced them to a fine mist. If I'd been playing at full capacity, we probably would have beaten the game by now.
So there you have it - I goofed up this game as much as it is humanly possible to goof up anything. Keep this anecdote in mind when evaluating my opinions about other games that gave me difficulty.
Monday, July 24, 2017
Hero Siege - Initial Thoughts
About the Game (From the Steam Store Page)
Hero Siege is a Hack 'n' Slash game with roguelike- & RPG elements. Annihilate hordes of enemies, grow your talent tree, grind better loot and explore up to 6 Acts enhanced with beautiful Pixel Art graphics! This game offers countless hours of gameplay and up to 4 player online multiplayer!
We developers are interested in your feedback. So if you choose to get the game see you on the forums! - Vexorian
In the depths of Tarethiel a group of monks united the four pieces of the brimstone talisman, waking up the slendering demons below... The Act was fortold in the Ancient Book of Revelations and that Satan would raise from Hell to rule the earth... Someone needs to stop him or else the mankind will soon face extinction!
Previous Playtime
7 hours
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This Game
I saw one of my friends playing it and from the brief glimpse I got from his screen, I decided that it looked kind of fun. When I saw it on sale for a buck and change, I figured "why not."
Expectations and Prior Experience
I've played Hero Siege online with my friends a couple of times, and it was mostly fun, but it had one flaw that absolutely drove me up the wall - the enemy hp was way too high compared to the amount of damage your (or at least my) characters could do. And since the game also throws huge hordes of enemies at you, it wound up being a long, drawn-out brawl, where I had to lead whole trains of enemies around the levels, picking them off one by one. I ordinarily like facing hordes of enemies, but call me old fashioned, if I'm fighting a horde, I want the individual members to be ridiculously fragile. Make up for the lost difficulty in numbers, if you must, but if you're bring 100 of your buddies, I don't want to see your face long enough to get bored by it.
Anyway, since that discovery, I've been kind of dreading playing this game. I'm hoping that the enemy hp seemed inflated because they were scaled for multiplayer, or I simply had a weak character build, or it's something that you can simply out level (or some combination of the three). If I have to lead my enemies on a conga-line of death for 20 hours, this will be an unbearable slog, but if it turns out not to be that, then Hero Siege looks a lot like the sort of game I enjoy. And while I kind of feel like 7 hours should be enough to get an accurate feel for a game, I am prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
Hero Siege is a Hack 'n' Slash game with roguelike- & RPG elements. Annihilate hordes of enemies, grow your talent tree, grind better loot and explore up to 6 Acts enhanced with beautiful Pixel Art graphics! This game offers countless hours of gameplay and up to 4 player online multiplayer!
We developers are interested in your feedback. So if you choose to get the game see you on the forums! - Vexorian
In the depths of Tarethiel a group of monks united the four pieces of the brimstone talisman, waking up the slendering demons below... The Act was fortold in the Ancient Book of Revelations and that Satan would raise from Hell to rule the earth... Someone needs to stop him or else the mankind will soon face extinction!
Previous Playtime
7 hours
What Was I Thinking When I Bought This Game
I saw one of my friends playing it and from the brief glimpse I got from his screen, I decided that it looked kind of fun. When I saw it on sale for a buck and change, I figured "why not."
Expectations and Prior Experience
I've played Hero Siege online with my friends a couple of times, and it was mostly fun, but it had one flaw that absolutely drove me up the wall - the enemy hp was way too high compared to the amount of damage your (or at least my) characters could do. And since the game also throws huge hordes of enemies at you, it wound up being a long, drawn-out brawl, where I had to lead whole trains of enemies around the levels, picking them off one by one. I ordinarily like facing hordes of enemies, but call me old fashioned, if I'm fighting a horde, I want the individual members to be ridiculously fragile. Make up for the lost difficulty in numbers, if you must, but if you're bring 100 of your buddies, I don't want to see your face long enough to get bored by it.
Anyway, since that discovery, I've been kind of dreading playing this game. I'm hoping that the enemy hp seemed inflated because they were scaled for multiplayer, or I simply had a weak character build, or it's something that you can simply out level (or some combination of the three). If I have to lead my enemies on a conga-line of death for 20 hours, this will be an unbearable slog, but if it turns out not to be that, then Hero Siege looks a lot like the sort of game I enjoy. And while I kind of feel like 7 hours should be enough to get an accurate feel for a game, I am prepared to be pleasantly surprised.
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes - 20/20 hours
I wound up getting 100% completion on "Padawan" mode at around 18 hours, so I decided to try "Master" mode. It was a complete waste of time. Yes, it was technically more difficult due to increased enemy damage, but it still had the same extremely forgiving respawn system, so there was never any danger of failing a mission. There was some skill involved in getting the platinum medals, but it was the sort of skill that was, at least 25% luck, given the game's imprecise controls.
Maybe it's a bit perverse for me to judge the game on these terms, though. It was clearly meant for kids, so maybe its simplicity and low difficulty are justified. . .
Except when I was a kid, I was playing Super Mario Brothers (though, to be fair, this was in, like, 1992, and I was very behind the times). Which isn't to say that I'm saying kids today are too coddled and should be playing more difficult video games (the other game we had for that NES was Ninja Gaiden, and you won't hear me wishing that on anybody), but rather, that I enjoyed the sensation that the game was pushing back against me, that my mastery was growing to overcome obstacles. So I don't think you have to treat kid gamers as if they were made of glass. I think they are resilient enough to face setbacks from time to time.
Unless I'm overestimating the intended audience for this game. Maybe it was meant for really young children, like 4 or 5 years old, who may not have the emotional maturity to cope with being thwarted by a game, but that's unlikely. The show it's based on has too much violence and mature themes for younger kids, and even though the game's plot is gentler, it's still a little too abstract for the sort of kids who would need its hand-holding gameplay.
All told, this was the least essential of the games in my Star Wars bundle (so far). The best thing about it is that it nails the look of the show and gets all the voice actors to reprise their roles. If it were a better game, it would be like playing a cartoon, but since it is so relentlessly on rails, it comes off more like you're simply watching an extra dull episode. I won't lose any sleep about removing it from my hard drive, and I will probably never be tempted to play it again, but I will always be grateful to it for introducing me to what turned out to be a pretty badass show.
Maybe it's a bit perverse for me to judge the game on these terms, though. It was clearly meant for kids, so maybe its simplicity and low difficulty are justified. . .
Except when I was a kid, I was playing Super Mario Brothers (though, to be fair, this was in, like, 1992, and I was very behind the times). Which isn't to say that I'm saying kids today are too coddled and should be playing more difficult video games (the other game we had for that NES was Ninja Gaiden, and you won't hear me wishing that on anybody), but rather, that I enjoyed the sensation that the game was pushing back against me, that my mastery was growing to overcome obstacles. So I don't think you have to treat kid gamers as if they were made of glass. I think they are resilient enough to face setbacks from time to time.
Unless I'm overestimating the intended audience for this game. Maybe it was meant for really young children, like 4 or 5 years old, who may not have the emotional maturity to cope with being thwarted by a game, but that's unlikely. The show it's based on has too much violence and mature themes for younger kids, and even though the game's plot is gentler, it's still a little too abstract for the sort of kids who would need its hand-holding gameplay.
All told, this was the least essential of the games in my Star Wars bundle (so far). The best thing about it is that it nails the look of the show and gets all the voice actors to reprise their roles. If it were a better game, it would be like playing a cartoon, but since it is so relentlessly on rails, it comes off more like you're simply watching an extra dull episode. I won't lose any sleep about removing it from my hard drive, and I will probably never be tempted to play it again, but I will always be grateful to it for introducing me to what turned out to be a pretty badass show.
Sunday, July 23, 2017
Star Wars: The Clone Wars - Republic Heroes - 15/20 hours
For the last few hours, I've been trying to collect all the platinum medals and artifacts from the levels I've already beaten. I may owe an apology to Republic Heroes' story. As bland and forgettable as it is, playing these levels with no story at all has been an exercise in endurance.
It's not even as if the game is notably bad, it's just an action-platformer that one can play on mental autopilot. Sometimes, as I button mash my way through hordes of enemies or make perfunctory button presses to leap from sticky platform to sticky platform, I feel as if the game is playing me.
I've almost come to love the times when the game's controls fail. It never leads to anything particularly disastrous, just the occasional swinging at air or leaping into a pit and then immediately respawning, but it does remind me that human input is still, technically, required (I'd say that it gives me a feeling of control, but the imprecise controls rarely mirror my intent).
I think the trick for finishing this game in a timely fashion is to just enter a trance-like state, where my mind is disconnected from hands and I can, I don't, contemplate the nature of the universe or some shit, while the game basically plays itself. It sounds easy, I just have to find the motivation to sit down and actually do it.
It's not even as if the game is notably bad, it's just an action-platformer that one can play on mental autopilot. Sometimes, as I button mash my way through hordes of enemies or make perfunctory button presses to leap from sticky platform to sticky platform, I feel as if the game is playing me.
I've almost come to love the times when the game's controls fail. It never leads to anything particularly disastrous, just the occasional swinging at air or leaping into a pit and then immediately respawning, but it does remind me that human input is still, technically, required (I'd say that it gives me a feeling of control, but the imprecise controls rarely mirror my intent).
I think the trick for finishing this game in a timely fashion is to just enter a trance-like state, where my mind is disconnected from hands and I can, I don't, contemplate the nature of the universe or some shit, while the game basically plays itself. It sounds easy, I just have to find the motivation to sit down and actually do it.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)