PAX East 2013 Diary - Day 3

The Preamble

Last but not least, Day 3! After two full days of PAX and late night drinking, this was by far the hardest day to wake up for. Despite arriving a little later than I had hoped, and being far more exhausted and hung over than I would have preferred, I still got to see a bunch of cool stuff on Day 3.

Day 3

Gamers With Jobs Panel

What ended up getting me out of bed Sunday was the Gamers With Jobs live podcast panel. I listen to a number of podcasts every week, but this one is by far my favorite. These are regular guys, with regular jobs, talking about games... and it’s great! They always provide an insightful look into the industry without being people that are paid to play/talk about games all day. They also manage a great, friendly community through their site that has a plethora of amiable members who are happy to accept you into their gaming groups.

The panel/podcast overall was a lot of fun. It was up to snuff with their normal weekly podcast, making for a fairly laid back, informative experience. The addition of Jeff Green and Justin McElroy to the regular GWJ crew made for a extra fun time.

Feel like listening? Check out the podcast here!

Back on the floor

Sunday was lacking in terms of panels that I was interested in, so after the GWJ panel, I headed back to the Expo hall on a mission...

Transistor

Having released their teaser trailer only a week before PAX, followed by the news that there would be a playable demo available, Supergiant Games (makers of Bastion) had me salivating for some time before my arrival. This was the one MUST SEE game that I would sacrifice time to stand in line for.

Bastion still holds up as one of the best games I’ve played. Period. So news of Transistor immediately got me excited. Granted, we won’t see the finished product until sometime next year, but the vertical slice that was shown at PAX this year has me thinking that Transistor is already a shoe-in for one of the best games of 2014.

The over an hour wait was well worth the 8-10 minute demo I got to play of Transistor. When you start the game, you can immediately see the Bastion aesthetic at work. Beautiful art, great music, and you guessed it... spectacular narration. That’s right, Logan Cunningham is back and narrates the game as the sword wielded by our female protagonist, Red. The combat is as fluid as in Bastion, in the same ARPG style, but with a twist. At any point you can stop time for a short period, plot out some Frozen Synapse style attacks on surrounding enemies, resume time, and watch your tactical attacks take place in real time. It sounds a bit strange, but it plays like a dream. Switching between these two contexts is seemless and feels great, allowing you to be far more tactical with combat than you could in Bastion.

The ten minute glimpse I got of the game was enough to convince me this will be up to par with Bastion, if not better. I wanted to keep playing, even if it there was no more, I would have played that demo for hours just to absorb the beauty. Definitely keep an eye out for this one, I know this will be a Day 1 pickup for me.

Divekick

I didn’t actually get to play Divekick, but the massive crowd surrounding the booth demanded I stick around and watch some gameplay.

Divekick is a clever and fun decomposition of the normal fighting game formula down to two buttons. Jump and kick. The idea is that you’ll focus less on the frustrating memorization of combos, and concentrate more on the mastery of space and time management. This looks like the definition of a “easy to pick up, crazy difficult to master” kind of game. Personally, I love the idea of this, as I'm not only horrible at memorizing combos but also at executing them. Only having to worry about two buttons would make me a much more formidable opponent... I think. Anyway, this look like one to definitely keep an eye on, especially if you fancy yourself a fighting game kind of person.

   
Some gameplay from one of my personal favorite commentators, TotalBiscuit.

Omegathon - The Final Round!

The way I’ve ended every PAX convention I’ve attended is by spectating the final round of the Omegathon. This is sort of the official end of the conference, as Gabe and Tycho present the last round, and give an epic thanks and mic dropping once the round is complete.

For those who aren’t familiar with the Omegathon, it’s an elimination tournament that occurs between 20 random PAX goers (the Omeganauts!) over the course of the convention. The games that are chosen for the tournament are a diverse mix of video games and board games alike, but the final round is a secret game that always comes from out of left field.

This year they picked Spaceteam. This was a fitting end to PAX for our group as we had been playing Spaceteam every night in the hotel room. Spaceteam is a multiplayer iOS game played via BlueTooth connection. It’s simple really. Each person has an interface of buttons, dials, and sliders while commands show up at the top of each person’s device, demanding attention. You have to call out what pops up on your screen and coordinate with your team to make sure everything gets done. The end result is more or less all of your team shouting at the same time, and what makes it even more amusing is that all of the actions are labeled with ridiculous, made up terms. 

This was a great idea for a final round of Omegathon! At least that’s what I thought... Turns out, Spaceteam isn’t all that stable. The game crashed... over and over and over again. After countless crashes, and at least an hour of wasted time retrying games, Tycho finally called it and gave the grand prize to both teams.

Gabe and Tycho then gave the closing words of PAX, and the convention was complete.

Conclusion

The convention was just awesome. I think I can safely declare that it was the best PAX experience I’ve had out of my three times as an attendee. I’m super excited for PAX Prime in August, and even though I had some trouble attaining my pass, some dear friends in Seattle will be helping me out with entry.

So you can rest assured, there will undoubtedly be a PAX Prime 2013 diary from The Thomp come August!

Review - BioShock Infinite

BioShock Infinite

Irrational Games

Unreal Engine 3

Windows, OS X, XBOX 360, PS3

FPS, RPG

March 26, 2013

The Preamble

We’ve been waiting (not so patiently) for this game since Irrational Games officially announced it back in August 2010. After numerous heartbreaking release day push-backs, the day has finally arrived that we can feast our eyes on the beautiful vision from Ken Levine that is BioShock Infinite.

In the line of System Shock and BioShock games, I’ve only played one, and that is the original BioShock. Ken Levine was involved with the development of the System Shock and the BioShock games are supposedly heavily influenced by these games. BioShock 2 wasn’t developed by Irrational so I was ultimately too skeptical to give it a go.

I absolutely adored BioShock; I would say it’s one of my favorite FPS/RPG games of all time and therefore I've had high hopes for BioShock Infinite since the moment I heard of its development. I'm pleased to announce that it does not dissapoint!

The Overview

BioShock Infinite is the third installment in the BioShock series. You play as Booker DeWitt, a former Pinkerton agent who is trying to find a young woman, Elizabeth, in a floating city called Columbia. Similar to Rapture (from BioShock), Columbia is a dystopia, rife with racism, jingoism, and xenophobia. As you make your way through the city to find Elizabeth, you unravel the mystery of how the city came to be, what the ultimate plan of the main antagonist and leader of Columbia, Father Zachary Hale Comstock is up to, and ultimately, how you fit into the puzzle.

Like the original BioShock, BioShock Infinite focuses strongly on story and world building while keeping solid first person shooter based gameplay mechanics with a nice mix of RPG elements.

The Good

• The world is incredibly rich, with loads of detail and polish. You can tell that the extra time we waited for this game was put to good use. Massive set pieces, building exteriors, building interiors, skylines, sound, color palette; all of these work together perfectly to deliver a living, breathing world to your eyeballs and ear holes.
  
  
  

  

  
  
• One of the most creative and original storys I’ve seen in a video game. The original Bioshock stood out for it’s unique, creepy, and immersive story and Infinite does a great job of carrying the torch. There are tons of audio logs to find that illuminate the world and characters beyond the main storyline, in addition to random easter eggs throughout the game that are truly magical to discover.
  

  
  

  

  
  
• Characters that you care about. Booker, Elizabeth, Comstock, the Luteces; everyone is wonderfully voiced and written. You start out knowing nothing about Booker and his back-story, and throughout the game grow to really relate to him and understand him. Elizabeth has a great progression throughout the game, and the co-op interaction you have with her is nothing but positive.
  
  
  

  

  
  
• Enemies are incredibly creative and badass. This was much the case in BioShock as well, but Infinite is even better. The Handymen and Motorized Patriots, in particular, have great character models and are extremely intense to fight.
  
  
  

  

  
  
• It’s rare for games with a strong story to also have great gameplay mechanics, but Infinite pulls it off. With the addition of roller-coaster-like skylines to hop around, and “tears” that can be opened to bring in interactive items via Elizabeth, Infinite is far from being a cookie cutter FPS experience.
  

  
  

  

  
  
• Like the first BioShock, Infinite melds a number of RPG elements into it’s shooter mechanics. There are a variety of guns to play with, and if you thoroughly explore each area, there's a ton of gear that you can find to give you perks in various areas of combat and maneuverability. Vigors (the new Plasmids) can also be upgraded to give enhanced effects. These elements give the player a significant choice in how they play the game as well as provide a nice degree of replayability.
  
  
  

  

  
  
• While I haven’t tried 1999 mode, Infinite still provides a significant challenge in Hard mode. I’m not a huge fan of the ‘checkpoint’ system (see below), but the no-quicksave makes for a more intense, and ultimately more challenging experience.

The Bad

• Checkpoints vs. Save anywhere. It makes sense for some games, and while they made it fit pretty well in BioShock Infinite, I still would have much preferred a ‘save anywhere’ system, like in the original BioShock.
• While there is exploration in the game, it still feels sort of linear. This is coming from someone who's been obsessed with open world games lately, but I couldn’t help but feel a bit confined while playing Infinite.
  
  

The Verdict

If you enjoy video games as an entertainment medium, and are interested in seeing a divine example of how video games can be art, as well as entertainment, this is maybe the best game you could choose to play. I can’t recommend this enough!

The Extras

This is very early in the game, so don't worry about spoilers. This is just the first 6 minutes of my time in Columbia. You can tell I was in awe when I first started looking around... (sorry for the shabby sound, I'm working on it)

Thomplog Retrospective - Week of 4/8/13

The Preamble

Welcome to the first of many Thomplog Retrospectives! The purpose of these posts is to give me a chance to tell you what I’ve been playing on a week to week basis (because I know you are dying to find out). Many of the games I like to play are too long to finish in a week (at least when working full time), so rather than go on with month long review droughts, I thought I’d give a weekly update on what I’ve been playing, and current thoughts on the games.

My general approach to reviews is to not start writing them until I’ve completed the game, so this kind of thing will be nice for games that can’t be “beaten” in the traditional sense (i.e. MMO, Multiplayer, etc), and also for games that are beatable, but I likely won’t officially “beat” them (i.e. Racing, Simulators, ARPG, etc).

The tl;dr of it is, this is a facade for allowing me to ramble and share my experiences with games some more. Hopefully you’ll enjoy these extra (questionably relevant) nuggets of gaming goodness.

Defiance

I spend most of my weekday evenings gaming, and last week, that time was almost entirely spent with Defiance. You can read my first impressions of the game here, if you haven’t checked them out yet.

Since I posted my first impressions, I’ve sunk close to 20 more hours into the game. In this time I’ve been leveling up (or EGO’ing up, in Defiance terms), getting a better feel for the game, and exploring more of what it has to offer.

I spent a good deal of time running co-op missions, which are about 20 minute long, instanced events that you play through with 3 other people. There are bosses at the end that pose a significant challenge and upon defeat, drop some nice goodies for the group. These are fun, and it’s nice that Trion implemented the “queue” for this out of the box so you can find a group quickly (especially since chatting in-game is impossible).

I also sampled the PvP scene, trying out the Deathmatch mode. I only played a few matches, so it’s hard for me to judge too much, but my cursory conclusion is that the matches net you a ton of XP (even when you lose), but you’ve really got to be on top of your game as far as skill and weapon choices go. Also, lag sucks...

As I mentioned in my post last week, I’ll likely do a Defiance Part 2 post outlining my experiences with co-op and PvP in more detail, as well as the effect of the TV show (which premieres tonight!) on the game and vice versa.

Far Cry 3

I dove into this game right after I finished BioShock Infinite and immediately loved it. Far Cry 3 provides a bright, beautiful island to play around on, along with a surprisingly compelling main story line. I don’t know how long that sentiment will hold, but for now, it’s been keeping me going.

You come across many beautiful sights throughout the island.

I’ve put about 21 hours into Far Cry 3 so far and I think I’m about halfway through the story line. The time might sound inflated and that’s because I started out doing every single side quest and collectable. I stopped doing that this weekend, as this is a very time consuming thing to do, and honestly, gets old after a while. In Defiance, there are a similar number of extra things to take part in (side quests, challenges, dynamic content) but there’s a more measurable reward for your time (XP, currency, gear), where in FC3, there’s barely any incentive aside from the fun of actually carrying out these tasks. I don’t want to discount that fun either, because it is fun, but it’s fun that I feel like I can go revisit any time. With that, I’ve decided to go full throttle on the main story missions in the game, and leave the side stuff for a later date... or maybe even never.

Long story short, I’m enjoying Far Cry 3 a lot so far but there’s an immense amount to do. I’m going to focus on the main story line now, and hopefully get a review out to you within the next week or two.  

Torchlight 2

I ended up booting TL2 back up this weekend for an hour or two. Recent interest from my roommate and the new support from Steam Workshop is what compelled me to do such a thing.

Torchlight always benefited a lot from the modding scene, and it appears TL2 is no different. Steam Workshop wasn’t super populated with stuff yet, but I did check out a sizable mod called Synergies Mod which adds a TON of stuff, including respec potions, fully functional Necromancer class, and two nearly finished classes: Paladin and Warlock, just to mention a few. I think I will be diving back into this game once I finish up some of the other stuff I’ve been playing.

The Necromancer class in action. Did I mention they upped the difficulty?
This is one  of the first encounters I ran into at Level 3...

SynergiesMOD

Steam Workshop

Chains

Basically, since the Humble Bundle group released their first uber successful bundle of indie games with the ‘pay what you want’ model, there have been a plethora of bundle sites that have popped up, all with amazing deals. I, for one, have a terrible time resisting the urge to pick these up. A dozen games for $5? SOLD! So now I have hundreds of these indie games, most of which I’ve never even touched.

I’m attempting to at least try out one of these games every week to evaluate if it’s something I want to sink more time into. This week, I chose Chains.

The gist of the game is that you link together bubbles together by their color... and that's really about it. It sounds simple, but mixing physics and speed tests into the mix can make for some very tough challenges. I don't want to talk too much about it because I've only played 5 levels or so, but at the very least, here’s a video of one of the early puzzles (this level made me realize that this game is going to kick my ass).

When I first started I was pretty skeptical, but with each new level, it revealed new and interesting challenges. I'm not confident I'll be able to beat it as it seems to have a fairly steep learning curve (I had to retry the above level from the video at least 10 times before beating it), but I think this will be one I stick with, at least to the point of being able to give it a real review.

Stay tuned for more info on this one.

Check out the BundleStars Catnip Bundle to get your hands on Chains now!

Fire Emblem: Awakening

I started this back in March on my way to PAX East and have been slowly making my way through it. My save file says I’ve logged 15 hours, but I think it’s probably been more like 20 or 25. For those who aren't familiar with Fire Emblem games, they're tactical turn based strategy RPGs. Sort of like the most recent XCOM, but with ridiculous anime characters, and its own set of kooky rules and quirks.

I decided initially to go with the permadeath mode of the game. Meaning, if any of your squad dies during a battle, they are gone forever (in regular mode, they revive at the end of the fight). There’s one way around this, and that is to shut off your 3DS, and retry the battle from the beginning.

Seeing as this is my first Fire Emblem experience, this was tearing me up at the beginning as I was figuring out combat strategies and how to play the game in general. I was shutting down my 3DS left and right, retrying missions 4 or 5 times before completing it without losing my most vital characters.

At any rate, I finally got the hang of it, and am now in a position where my squad of Shepherds are unstoppable. I’m now enjoying this game a ton and consistently look forward to playing it, which I normally do before I go to bed.

I’m looking forward to writing a review for this one, and it will likely come alongside the Far Cry 3 review in the next couple of weeks, though it may not be until later (15 hours in, I’m not even halfway through yet, you can do the math).

Pending

I finished BioShock Infinite 4 days after it released and I still haven’t posted a review yet. I’m working on it! The review has been in progress for a long time now, but for some reason I have not felt compelled to work on it. I think it’s partly because of the massive amount of hype the game has gotten since it came out. You know what my review is going to say... The game is amazing. It’s not hard to figure that out. Surprises aside, I plan to post that review for you this week sometime.

Lastly, the PAX East 2013 Day 3 post! I’ve been a little slow on getting these out (there’s too much gaming to do!) but the wait will finally come to an end this week. I will post Day 3 this week, I promise!

To whet your palette for the BioShock Infinite review...

Early Impressions - Defiance

Defiance

Trion Worlds

Windows, XBOX 360, PS3

MMO, Third Person Shooter, RPG

April 2, 2013

The Preamble

It happened again... The MMO itch. Everytime I quit playing an MMO I tell myself I will never play another one again. Silly, silly, Thomp. I ought to know better by now.

At any rate, the itch has been lingering for the last several weeks. I’ve been fighting it off with moderate success, playing the closed beta of Marvel Heroes when I can to subvert the voice in my brain telling me to pick up a real MMO.

Well, the voice won. I picked up Defiance on Tuesday evening.

I thought I'd give a cursory overview of my thoughts so far. I’ve really only scratched the surface of the game, having not even tried the co-op missions or battleground-like PvP.

I’ve sunk about 5 hours into the game so far and while I have some gripes, I’ll definitely be continuing on this adventure through Defiance.

The Overview

For those who aren’t keeping their ear to the ground in the MMO space (I don't blame you), Defiance is a recently released MMOTPS (massively multiplayer online third person shooter) developed by Trion Worlds (creator of Rift). Money wise, Defiance uses the Guild Wars model of paying full price up front for the game and then letting you play it forever without any monthly fees. There is a micro-transcaction store (again, like GW/GW2) but the items you buy are almost exclusively cosmetic, so it’s reasonable.

The game is set in a post-terraformed San Francisco Bay area, several decades in the future. A number of alien races have come to Earth to make a new home for themselves, not realizing that the planet was already inhabited. This led to a war (what a shocker), but a war that has a semi-peaceful ending, leaving a large population of humans and aliens that become allies and attempt to live together in harmony.

You, the player, join in the story as an Ark Hunter about 20 years after the reconciliation. You crash land in the Bay Area with a mission to search out advanced alien technologies found in Arks that are scattered around the area (as well as crashing around the world map at random places and times).

The unique thing about this game is that the game world and characters tie into an upcoming SyFy television series entitled (you guessed it) Defiance. Supposedly, things that occur in the show will affect the game world, and events that occur in the game have the potential to make a difference in the show. I think this is the first time a multi-medium experience has been presented in this way, so it should be very interesting to see how things pan out. The show premieres April 15, 2013, on SyFy channel.

Nolan and Irisa (main characters from the TV show) taking a rest at a local watering hole. 

The Good

• Multiplatform! Defiance was released on Xbox 360, PS3, and PC, and while it’s not cross-platform (PC players can’t play with console players), it’s a step in the right direction. This doesn’t affect me too much as a PC gamer, but I’m happy to see MMOs moving toward the console space. There are very few MMOs on consoles, so props to Trion for widening their horizons and releasing this on some other platforms.
• Episodic missions. There are quest (mission?) lines that intersect directly with the show’s storyline and characters. It’s hard to say exactly how this will work, but it looks like more of these missions will open up as the series goes on. This is yet another cool and unique aspect to the television tie-in mechanic.
  

  
  

  
  
• An MMO that requires some skill! You’re not going to find yourself spamming frostbolts on auto-targeted enemies like in most traditional MMOs. You’ll have to actively fight and dodge attacks in real time, and while the AI isn’t great, the game poses a significant challenge to players, especially when solo’ing.
  

  
  

  
  
• Tons of dynamic content. Rift was one of the early adopters of this mechanic (Guild Wars 2 also employs it), and it’s definitely prevalent in Defiance. Arkfall events are occurring all the time, letting you team up with a ton of people and fend off a small alien invasion, resulting in a good deal of XP, gear, and fun! Also, as you run around doing the plethora of side quests and challenges, there are all sorts of small dynamic events that you can take on in a solo or duo group that provide a good deal of XP and fun. (See Extras for extended Arkfall video.)
• Early vehicle access! Just wanted to note this, as I personally hate the grind to get a mount. Defiance throws one at you free of charge when you’re about an hour into the game. Bravo Trion!

The Not So Good

• The AI is bad. This is a weird criticism for an MMO since mob AI is almost always terrible, but it seems somehow more apparent in a shooter setting as opposed to RPG.
• The interface is awful. I guess the problem with bringing an MMO to consoles is that you have to dumb down the UI to the point of being able to use it with a controller. As a result, it’s pretty horrible for PC players. On top of this, Trion does a terrible job of explaining the damn thing. I did a lot of fumbling around and googling before I felt comfortable with it, and even now, it’s only tolerable.
  

  
  

  

  That's right, no dragging and dropping.

  
  

  

  The dreaded wheel. This is the sort of thing I hate about console-ifying interfaces. 

  
  
• I’ve never played an MMO where the chat channels are so vacant of discussion. It’s so weird, I don’t think I’ve seen a single line of text in chat since I started playing the game. I don’t know what the deal is, but it makes it extremely difficult to group up with people.

The Verdict (sort of) 

Massively multiplayer online games are unique beasts in that they each have their own evolutionary paths. Defiance adds the television tie-in element, which will bring about a new evolutionary track for the game world that other MMOs haven’t explored yet. I guess what I'm getting at is, the game has barely been out for a week. There's a lot up in the air right now.

It's really impossible to come to a verdict for an MMO so early, especially after only 5 hours of gameplay (a piddly amount for an MMO). What I can say is that I have some gripes, but overall, I'm very enthusiastic about this game and I'm looking forward to exploring and uncovering more of what Defiance has to offer.

There are many things I have yet to explore:

• PvP
• Co-op missions
• End game content
• Significance of TV show tie-in (the show hasn’t even started yet!)

I’ll be sure to post again with more details about the bullet points I’ve mentioned above, as well as the general state of the game as time goes on.

For now though, I think that if you like shooters, especially in the vein of Borderlands, and you're fond of MMOs (you know you feel that itch!), then I'd recommend picking this up. It should be an interesting experience playing the game along with the screenings of the show.

The Extras

Here's a longer look at what sort of dynamic content you can encounter in Defiance. I'm on my way to an Arkfall event, and find an abandoned vehicle on the side of the road that turns into a mini-event. Anyway, it's not a lot, but gives you some idea of what you can expect to see in the game.