Following yesterday’s VOTW, I have some good news if you’re a huge gaming fan, you may have heard of the upcoming Star Wars MMO, or rather the next one. Entering a world which is completely unlike that of a Star Wars Galaxies, yet oh so familiar is Star Wars: The Old Republic, as with most MMOs, the title will be released for PC only, somehow continuing the desktop legacy, they never outgrow their usefulness, will they?

You have the chance to play as either the Galactic Republic or the Sith Empire, each assigned different abilities, unique classes with a relevant backstory who’s affected by the choices the player makes throughout the game. The classes are as follows; the Bounty Hunter, Sith Warrior, Imperial Agent, and Sith inquisitor for the Sith Empire, and the Trooper,Smuggler, Jedi Knight,and Jedi Consular for the Galactic Republic. Despite the fact that the player can be at the helm of their characters choices and the moral implications of such, the story will generally fit in to the overall story arc .Those who prefer even more background information will be glad to know of the nozelisation of the game written by Sean Williams called “Star Wars: The Old Republic: Fatal Alliance” and is scheduled for release on July 27, 2010.

In terms of gameplay, the player will be able to have complete control of their character including the choices they make, which will affectively permanently open or close storylines. The style of the MMO will seem familiar to fans of the Mass Effect series, with full voice dialogue and a benchmark in cinematic scene integration to enhance gameplay. It has been confirmed that the following planets will be accessible so far; Korriban, Ord Mantell, Nal Hutta, Tython, Coruscant, Balmorra, and Alderaan. Although players expecting to see protagonist from the films will be disappointed, as the events in The Old Republic are set somewhat 3,500 years before those on-screen, and some 300 years after Knights Of The Old Republic. The MMO essentially focuses on the re-emergence of the Sith Empire and it’s attempts of destroying the Galactic Republic, which from the rather amazing trailer below, seems successful at one point or another. It seems that the Sith Empire are at their peak and formidable at that. Now take a peek and enjoy. Watch in HD for most amazing shizz ever.

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As video games become more sophisticated, more complex and for lack of a better term, more artistically minded in their conception, production and execution, you wonder how detrimental the moniker of “video game” is for a medium with its own unique set of possibilities. “Video” remains indicative of a previous age – somewhat rubbish, a bit eccentric and certainly not something to be taken seriously – and “game” reinforces the idea that the video game is simply a way to waste away time, therapeutic all the same, but serving no great purpose other than that. Some day I am sure the video game moniker will fade away, with our society appropriating a more suitable term for a medium whose potential is only just being considered with any seriousness. Perhaps the Noughties – Ergck! – will eventually be defined as a key decade in which video games really began to explore this potential, or at least mainstream audiences and more importantly multi-national conglomerates began to recognise it. But then again, concerning how gaming has developed over the last few decades, in would be hard to discard any development cycle as worthless.

STAR WARS: KNIGHTS OF THE OLD REPUBLIC (BIOWARE, 2003 for PC/XBOX)

Knights of the Old Republic, to me, was one of these transitory games where, even if it was not truly innovative, it had the polish and the instant appeal on top of an already well-crafted and satisfying core game, to absolutely enthral me. A large part of this comes down to the Star Wars license, this must be said, wielding all the hallmarks of the series – but the key for this is the quality of the story and the writing. If the Star Wars prequels proved anything, it was that the series is more than a number of repeated motifs, sounds, memorable dialogue and music. KOTOR, as it has since been known, arrived for me one Christmas and kept me busy for weeks, months even, suffering itself to be replayed by my younger self again and again, under an increasingly avid addiction to the flexibility available with the game.

Describing the plot again elicits nostalgic thoughts: 4000 years before the rise of the Galactic Empire, a Republic cruiser harbouring a powerful yet naive Jedi comes under attack above the planet Taris; you, an insignificant Republic soldier, are tasked with making sure the Jedi escapes the Sith. What follows is a terrifically enjoyable adventure that evokes all the fun and banter of the original Star Wars films as you begin to unravel the mysteries of the Galaxy, discovering the source of the Sith’s new found power. It’s an engaging story, populated with many lively and intriguing characters and involving numerous strange and wonderful worlds. The sheen and freshness may have diminished under repeated playthroughs, but its significance in many peoples gaming memories is inarguable and the popularity of its protagonist remains undwindling.

If there’s another thing that KOTOR did what other games didn’t do for me, it was to establish the name of a developer in my mind. Bioware, who have since flexed their muscles far and wide in the industry, would have already been familiar to veterans of RPGs such as Baldur’s Gate and Neverwinter Nights, but for me this was the first time we met. Developing into a cerebral gamer as I have, I’ve been interested in whatever they have gone on to do – although circumstance has ruled the much celebrated Mass Effect out of my reach for now. But I’ve played Jade Empire (great, despite its somewhat unsatisfactory length) and I have my eyes on Dragon Age: Origins, and certainly optimistic towards Star Wars: The Old Republic.

So much of my life has been spent playing this game in the last month. My first character I finished after 40 hours of playing. Korben the Human Noble Warrior strode a virtuous path, until the end that is, when he made a Dark Pact to survive the final battle. After finishing the game that time I started to play a mage, and a Rogue, and then a Dwarven fighter, yes, three games at once, alternating as I went.

My own progress slowed down then, not because I was playing too many games, but because my fiancee started to play too. Yes, I’m a lucky guy – instead of being killed for playing too many video games, she joins in. Of course, that’s less play time for me, but we often do a collaborative, I hold the gamepad, she tells me what to do. It’s quality geek time.

I hit a snag when my internet stopped working though, apparently some of my downloadable content requires checking in with the dragonage servers. We couldn’t continue to play the game! So my lady started a new game and I started two more (that’s 9 ongoing games if you’re wondering) and still we play.

I was a huge Mass Effect fan, and KOTOR before that. So picking up the collector’s edition of Dragonage from Bioware was a no-brainer for me, and I haven’t regretted that choice for even a second. I have all the DLC that’s been put out so far, and I can’t wait for more…just like I can’t wait for ME2, only a few months away.

I highly recommend this game, the multiple Origins alone make the game great to replay, the stories are intricate and engaging. The graphics are great, although I think they went a little too far with the bloodspatter. The “mature” themes are not gratuitous, not as much as we see on TV these days even. All in all, a great game.

Although, just to spice things up a bit, I am going to go home and play Oblivion, jut for some variety.

Now that’s what I call “Schlauch”.^^

Dragon Age: Origins is a recently released game that is one of the precious few to address the effects of organized religion on its world in a non-cynical manner. Instead of being set in a world steeped in nothing but ancient traditions and esoteric ritual, developer Bioware has merged such religious conceits into the “current” storyline of its game in a way that much more reflects reality.

The subtle but brilliant difference here is that every competing faction, every sect that follows the game’s equivalent of Jesus, has a very, very good reason for doing so, for their traditions evolving the way they have, even though most all of them claim a common source.

Most video game RPGs treat organized religion as either a superfluous element of a game’s backstory, or as a huge evil organization that must be destroyed. Here faith systems become the driving force behind the entire plot, finally.

Taking the time to go through games you’ve spent on can be such an experience. They’re like booster packs of MTG where you never know if you’ll end up getting crap in that pack-o-ten or if there’s a nice Balduvian Horde card that just so happened to sneak itself in there.

Datablitz, my favorite games paradise shopping ground i frequent here in Cubao just rang me up the other day that my order of  Left 4 Dead 2 and Dragon Age:Origins just arrived.

Thinking i’d pop in some quick action, i went for L4D2 first  and started hammering away at them zombies. As expected, the game was great and quite bug free in the multiplayer department (kudos to valve and steam for mastering such services). But i still think that the content would have been good enough for an expansion to the first title.

After a couple of hours of zombie bashing, i popped in the Dragon Age:Origins installer and went down for a smoke to contemplate if there would ever be a game purchase that gave you a feeling of money well spent. The feeling like you just had a really, really good meal. I had high expectations with the new Bioware title since i was a big fan of the Knights of the Old Republic series.

You can imagine my pleasant surprise when i got past the first 10 hours of playtime.  MONEY WELL SPENT INDEED! I rarely feel like i just gained an achievement but playing this was loads of fun. On the onset, they were true to their word, the polish was magnificent. It had a system similar to what you’d use with KOTOR (which made me jump into the game even faster), but i would like to highlight that it was such a graphically intense experience that i was just blown out of the water (the specific game mechanics work quite well with me, but i usually take a spin from the POV of a guy who grew up on paper and dice).  But as usual, i was already forseeing the “what could be’s” in their big upcoming MMO bid.

These are basically some of the key things their QA and dev team will think about when they get into the realm of load testing;

• Can the graphically rich environments used in this new engine of theirs survive the latencies of the world wide web? Let’s face it, not everyone has near perfect connectivity. 
• How can you simulate this as well as find workarounds once the issues are known? There’s always packet optimization or just reducing the number of processes on the server side and keep most of them on the client side. This way, when you think about the whole 40 man raid scenario, it might actually be possible and even less cludgy than what’s out in the asian market now. (i raid on WoW with 300-400ms and we do just fine thank you).
• Finally, how can your application cope with the packet loss that’s going to occur anyway? It can’t not occur, you still see it on LAN environments either way, throwing it into the public internet cloud just throws the game client into the wild wild west.

The key message here though is that we’re looking forward to a really good Star Wars universe that they had already set into motion. Just don’t tell me that us players here in asia can’t enjoy it simply because of latency restrictions.  Do us good Bioware! Make me spend my money on SWTOR!

We’ve seen dozens of horror story launches on new MMOG titles. Mostly because dev’s took a stab at the MMOG monster without anticipating how fast they could cope to correct the errors, get the paying players into the server, and provide a rich experience UPON LAUNCH! Otherwise, they’re going to need some heavy investment since there’s the after day zero cleanup process of fixing what’s failed before those first 30 days are up. Not to mention, most gamers are fickle now. If they can’t get what they wanted out of the game as early as you advertise beta invites, then you’re up for some heavy slamming.

Ultimately, i have nothing but faith in Bioware. And i’m sure that they’re going to do the right thing prior to their beta events. After playing Dragon Age: Origins though, i can’t wait to see a new toon with a light saber in hand.

Another pair of fortnights, another new column!  Futurismic have my 21st Blasphemous Geometries column entitled “The Mechanics of Morality : Why Moral Choices In Video Games Are No Longer Fun”.

It is a little bit longer than my usual BG columns but I felt that I had quite a bit to say about this issue.  I am particularly proud of what I am calling The Clarkson Effect :

In order to be fun, transgressive behaviour requires the existence of a strong moral code to transgress against. However, when the transgressive opinions and behaviour become an accepted and recognised way of being, the behaviour ceases to be transgressive and thereby ceases to be fun.

http://www.platformnation.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/mass-effect.jpg

I like video games a whole bunch. I don’t discuss them too much here. I like to think I’m a sort of casual/hardcore gamer. Okay that doesn’t make sense. Basically, I don’t play night and day, but when I get a few hours of down time I like to sit back and play the one game I’ve been playing for the last few weeks or so.

I have a general like of shooters. Mostly because some of the best games that have been made in recent years have indeed been shooters (Halo, Call or Duty 4, Bioshock). Halo, while being a muck of an overall story, does indeed have the best shooter engine and physics ever. That’s the reason the multiplayer is so beloved, it’s just so fluid and telling. COD 4 meanwhile is such a wonderfully immersive game, with great goosebumpy moments. And Bioshock is my favorite, not much replayability, but such great art design and some really story/thematic points to boot (it’s a criticism of Randian Objectivism, perhaps it was made just for me).

But most of all I love RPGs. I’m a sucker for story and immersion. I just am.

I particularly love the final fantasy series. Yeah, I completely understand that the series has a real particular set of flaws, most stemming from the fact it is uber-japanese themes and eastern storytelling, but they’re awfully unique even in their samey qualities. And they have the scope not just of a novel, but an entire series of novels. Outside of the FF series, I also have particular love of the elder scrolls series (Oblivion!) and their other revamp of Fallout 3, which took the same exact engine as Oblivion and managed to make a completely different feeling experience. Fallout 3 is just fantastic.

Which brings us to Mass Effect and it’s RPG/shooter hybrid shittyness.

First note, I’ve played Bioware games before. I’ve played the KOTOR series and thought they were pretty good-ish. It definitely lacking some of the organic qualities i loved in the eldar scroll and ff series, but it was essentially interesting storytelling. Then again I tend overvalue any star wars property and grade it a full letter grades above where it should be. When you like everything about a particular universe it’s just more fun. What can I say?

So I was very excited for Mass Effect, I’ve gone a long time without getting and heard some very good things … and now, having beat it… I am very, very, very disappointed. I seriously have no understanding of how it got that kind of love. It’s exceedingly repetitive. Go here. Find this base. Kill this thing. Seriously, the side missions are especially meaningles. People complained about Oblivion and those missions were terribly unique compared to this stuff.

And don’t even get me started on the sameness of the design. Lazy. Lazy. Lazy. Every cave, every planet, every mine, they’re all the exact same. Seriously, THE EXACT SAME MAP. Sometimes the same exact box layout. It makes every mission a paint by numbers exercize. And believe me, I’m a completionist when it comes to my gaming so it’s very, very boring.

In terms of story I didn’t give a shit about anyone, usually Bioware is a tad better than that even with it’s generic clunkiness. I could tell you every story beat right before it happened.

This hilarious chart is completely accurate.

I’m sorry, but it’s true. And Bioware doesn’t seem to get it either.

Look, I know and understand Cambellian Hero Story analysis just like everyone else whose been in high school. It’s great and is responsible for so many great stories. But it’s not a lame excuse for paint by numbers storytelling. With this generation it’s become the most lazy storytelling exercise in the world, because they just make a beat for beat version of Star Wars and claim it’s the Cambellian Hero Story! No it’s not, what makes those stories unique is originality of detail and way you make the story seem as if it’s different, not how strictly you adhere to it.  There’s virtually no distinction in HOW you emphasize those story telling points anymore and it Mass Effect was the best example.

What stinks about that is that the scope of Mass Effect is great, the sheer idea for building a fully explorable universe has just fantastic possibilities and the shooter aspect was actually pretty well executed, which makes the fact that it’s eventually a boring, pointless game all the more annoying. Look, I understandd how much it took to build something so big in scope, but when it came to subtle execution in giving each little corner it’s own distinction (and HELL a reason to even go there!) all we get is long semi-amusing paragraphs written about the planet. And for character? You ever hear of show don’t tell? Well instead of getting to see that character’s story in some fashion (you get in FF) or have it play into the story in some fashions (KOTOR, Elder Scrolls), the character’s background is just explained to you in the most boring dialogue options. Tali’s plight made me want to shoot myself in the face.

I’m sorry but it’s a lazy, lazy game in the end.

Compare it to the Final Fantasy series where the whole thing strings along in a fluid series of vignettes and starkly different looking environments and goals, and employs weird reality-dream-bending methods of storytelling… Some people don’t dig it and think it’s weird and I totally understandthat , but the last thing you can accuse the story telling of being is lazy.

I get it’s a matter of taste and what not, but COME ON. Bioware just keeps making the same-ish sort of game. I don’t get the universal adoration. Hell, Fallout 3 used the same exact engine as Oblivion and it managed to feel exceedingly different, all because of the nuance of detail. Even recent shooters like COD4 and Bioshock felt more like interesting stories, because they were organic, fluid, and detailed. The details are everything in video games and Mass Effect opted for the sparse boring map. Anytime a RPG gets shown up by a shooter is a big warning flag to me.

And look I’ll eat my hat if ME 2 improves on any of the repetitive qualities and the entire game was excuse to build an engine, but seriously. I don’t get it.

The ability to say something sarcastic in every dialogue option, does not a great game make.

Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings

The Witcher has sold over 1.2 million copies as a PC only game, which isn’t the best I know, but it’s not bad either. It’s one of the best games out there that has been severely overlooked. If any of you people out there are RPG fans you owe it to yourself to go pick this one up. It’s only 20 bucks on steam right now.

Some game footage has been leaked for the game’s sequel Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Witcher 2 has a chance to be like Half-Life 2. Half-life was a good game. Half-Life 2 was an awesome, genre changing game. The Witcher was a good game. Can it’s sequel be ground breaking?

The current generation of RPGs was birthed with Morrowind, Dungeon Siege, and Knights of the Old Republic, among other titles and perfected in Oblivion, Fallout 3, and Mass Effect. I think it’s time for some fresh ideas on the genre.

Witcher 2 has some interesting concepts from what we’ve seen of it so far. Dynamic NPCs that have things to do, innovative combat with finishing moves, a high end graphics engine, and a unique dark world for the story to develop in. None of this means “earth-shattering”, but it’s a good step towards something great.

Keep on gaming people!

Estáis en lo cierto. Tenía muy abandonado mi blog, pero no es porque este juego no merezca mi atención, sino porque mis aires de grandeza me habían hecho creer que podía escribir de algo más que no fueran jedis y espadas de luz. Aquí está la cuarta entrega de mis posts de KOTOR.

Esta vez toca hablar de Misson. Es una ladrona a la que su hermano abandona en Taris. Tiene bastante subidos los humos, para no dejar de ser una cría, pero claro, todo es más fácil si te acompaña una enorme bola de pelo de Kashyyyk. Misson tiene cierta maña para tareas como seguridad o demoliciones. La verdad es que no me parece demasiado útil, pero bueno, mejor ayuda menuda que ninguna ayuda.

Misson puede ser útil con un blaster en la mano, aunque la verdad es que no es un personaje muy importante ni esencial para el juego.   

Tampoco hay mucho más que decir, pero espero que la próxima vez tarde menos tiempo en volver a aparecer por aquí.

Nos vemos.

Site’com

Les adeptes de guerres épiques et amateurs de jeux massivement multijoueurs guettent la moindre information sur la prochaine tuerie du siècle, à savoir Barbapapa contre Babar dans la forêt des rêves bleus… OU ENCORE… Star Wars The Old Republic, des studios BioWare.

Le studio en question lâche régulièrement images, infos et vidéos sur le site officiel. Si vous aussi voulez prendre part à la plus grande aventure Sith de tous les temps – basée 300 ans après Knights of the Old Republic, connectez-vous à l’univers le plus dense et le plus enivrant de tous les temps : www.swtor.com.

Et si vous voulez mater des filles toutes nues, vous informer sur les meilleures sorties vidéoludiques pour enfants de plus de 18 ans, restez sur le site www.ecchigaming.com ou faites votre trou sur le blog le plus hot de la planète,  http://ecchigaming.wordpress.com

Oh oui mam'zelle, ce soir, tu passes à la casserole !

PC

According the MarketSaw blog, there may be the possibility that the Galaxy Far, Far Away that we’ve all come to greet with apathy may be returning to cinemas.  A strong source suggests that the success (or quality) of Star Trek’s reinvention has whet George’s appetite for more Star Wars movies.  This time however, we’ll be treated to a trilogy in 3D – this all depends however on the success of James Cameron’s Avatar, which seems to be drawing on Star Wars’ legacy of infantilising the public’s perception of science fiction.

Noah Berger/AP

Good news for what would otherwise be a heinous and vile suggestion would be that Lucas is willing – or planning – to relinquish his autocratic control on the reins of the franchise.  With little production input, and no director’s chair, the iconic franchise could be in the hands of someone with a fresh angle and perspective, and someone who can write snappy dialogue.  The other side of this coin is that Lucas may only be willing to let his old chums from film school take a crack at it.  And while Spielberg taking a shot would probably lead to predictable but worthy results, the idea of the fading powers of Francis Ford Coppola controlling Star Wars is a bit of a stomach churner.

Lucas before has stated that his initial intention was for three trilogies chronologing the fall of the Empire.  This is probably a bad idea; the franchise is almost bursting from the seams with the amount of film, TV shows, comics and crap books documenting the Galactic Civil War already, with little room for a whole trilogy.  Only the pairing of the planned live-action TV show (that’s presumably still going ahead) with the word “Battlestar Galactica” piques any interest at all, for its about time Star Wars matured a little and grew a philosophical limb – and by that I mean returning to more than just Zeitgeist Jedi bollocks.

So what other period in the Star Wars timeline could possibly give enough fruit to be worthy of a 3D trilogy?  The future, envisioned with increasingly ludicrous novels, ranging in quality from shockingly bad to forgettably readable, is problematic. There will undoubtedly be question concerning the fate of Luke, Han and Leia that cinema goers will want to know, and the amount of times we see the resurgence of the Empire, the resurgence of the Sith, the resurgence of another Empire, the invasion of Star Trek villains the Vong is endemic of Star Wars playing by the same old tricks again.

The past of Star Wars – way before the fetid prequels – has been plundered before to reasonable success.  The Knights of the Old Republic era, from the first comics documenting the ancient Jedi to Bioware’s fantastic roleplaying games (including the in-development MMO, The Old Republic), are set far enough before the events of the Galactic Civil War to overcome any notion of knowing what’s going to happen before the characters do – a large problem of the prequels.

The best of these additions to the franchise borrow the fun, humour and types from the original trilogy and plant them in a mythically framed universe slightly different from the one that burst onto the screens in 1977.  But because there has been a great deal of success with the Knights of the Old Republic era – and thus many different iterations of it – one wonders whether there is enough room for more galaxy spanning wars or confrontations between robed monks at all.

Why not simply a story about a Smuggler? Everybody loves a Smuggler.

Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic is being cancelled by Dark Horse as of issue 50 in Feb of 2010.

THAT SUCKS.

If anyone needed proof that Dark Horse is run by idiots, here is one prime example.

This series has grown on us as we’ve followed Zayne around. Sure once the conspiracy against him was revealed and Hazen destroyed it hasn’t been as exciting

Sure the artwork hasn’t been consistent and yes we’ve complained about that a dozen times or more in this blog.

But the storytelling was also good if not great.

Dark Horse can’t seem to keep a regular Star Wars title for too long, they get nervous or something and just kill it. It’s not right and we the fans should tell them so.

John Jackson Miller the creator/writer extraordinaire of the series though is optimistic and is promising us all a big finale.

We’ve been working toward the series’ climax for some time, getting pieces into place for the big finale — where we really have pulled out all the stops. Every question posed in the series (at least to my way of thinking) is addressed. I turned in the last script recently and was very pleased with it — it wraps things up for this incarnation pretty close to how I’d always imagined it. Dark Horse has given us marvelous support and creative freedom from Day 1 on this series — and we did everything to make sure things went out with a bang!

With the season two premier of Star Wars: The Clone Wars last night in America, and the Old Republic beta opening, it seems only right I pull a Star Wars related post out of the bag. Due to my most recent Steam purchase there is, of course, only one way to go with this. I present to you a review of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

Knights of the Old Republic Box Art

I know the game is almost six years old now, but anyone who immediately ignores games over x amount of years misses out on so many great experiences they are not true gamers in my book. Now I know that KotOR was originally an XBox game, but I am going to be talking PC, because that is where I met KotOR.

For those unfamiliar with the game it is a third-person RPG game, with a system based, to a certain extent, on the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Role Playing Game, with turn-based combat. There’s also the light/dark side tracking depending on how you respond in the dialogue segments or who you pick fights with and the major plot decisions. All of which add light or dark side points to you which changes your appearance. Oh, and you can be male or female, depending on whether you are a boy or girl, or, indeed, what pixellated things you like looking at.

I’m going to start showing my Star Wars geek now when describing the story. I’ll try and translate what you might not understand. The story takes place about 4000 years before the Galactic Empire’s rise, 3956 BBY (Before the Battle of Yavin [episode IV {4}]) for those keeping count, it’s at the time the evil Sith Lord Darth Malak, former apprentice of Darth Malak (Bad guys) unleashed a sith armada on the galaxy, spreading the Jedi everywhere (yes that happens a lot in Jedi history, no they don’t learn) and leading to the death of many Jedi in the process. Maybe you can tell that the original concept for this game was as a Clone Wars game.

Now I know the game is six years old, but as the game has only been recently released again on Steam, and as this will, hopefully, result in new people discovering this game, I won’t go into the various plot twists here. But I will say that the player goes on a quest, having suffered amnesia, to rediscover who he is and to take on Darth Malak. He is joined by various people, some depending on force-side alignment and visits various planets on the way. Taris, Dantooine (the planet Leia says has the Rebel base in episode IV), Tatooine (Anakin and Luke’s home world, the desert planet), Kashyyyk (home of the Wookiees), Manaan (An aquatic planet not in any films), and Korriban (Sith home world and site of Sith academies and tombs) feature although you can visit them in a different order.

I will just say that when I refer to the Player’s character as “he” it’s not that I’m sexist, it’s just that the canonical story (The official one) is that the player is male. Also, the list of planets is in the order that, canonically, you should visit.

The story of this game is brilliant. Not just from a Star Wars fan point of view, but also as a gamer who likes a game with a good story. The characters are well developed through the game, and the sound track also plays well. The game is played in a very cinematic way, in that you can see your party, and the player character, the set pieces are well rendered (especially by 2003’s standards) and the game is heavily driven by the story line. It is, however, a player-driven movie, the way these games should be, with the emphasis on the player making choices.

Star Wars has always been about the bigger picture, introducing characters for a split second so that you know stuff happens off screen, the inclusion of many planets that give the galaxy depth, and then there’s the way the music joins it all up. All of this is in the game, and it all works.

As a gamer this is a wonderful game, that I am only to happy to revisit thanks to Steam. As a Star Wars fan, this game is truly remarkable, it is, quite simply, one of the most influential pieces of Expanded Universe work ever, and clearly one of the best Star Wars video games around. That and LEGO Star Wars.

Now, bring on The Old Republic!

MTFBWY

A friend of mine started playing NWN2 recently so I decided to check it out for myself. I install all 11 gigs worth of fun, start it up, get about 5 minutes in, and watch it crash. I can’t fix it, and it always crashes. Oh well. Looks like I’m playing KOTOR2 while I wait for Dragon Age.

My Pics of KOTOR and Mr. Az

Ok first off let me say i’m sorry for how long it’s been since my last post. I’m still trying my hardest to get into this seriously.

As of my last update I was playing KOTOR and loving the dialog of the game.  Good conversation means so much to a game. You can have the perfect game in all aspects but if you get some half-baked voice acting and poor writing your game will suck. Deus Ex, which I actually enjoyed playing, had some bad voice acting:

As a quick side note i’ll add the i’ve continued to play the newest Prince of Persia game, despite it’s lame gameplay, because of the good dialog and voice acting.

Now i’m playing Mass Effect and the voices are stellar. A solid line of dialog delivered by a good actor pulls you into a game like nothing else. To make things better once you’ve heard a character tell you something in a convincing way you can respond in an equally convincing way. The dialog choices in this game are super.

Now if Edward James Olmos had narrated the Terminator Salvation game would it have sold more copies?

Keep on gaming people!

I should probably start this off by saying that I’m not a huge Star Wars Fan. As a kid, I had a mild obsession with the original trilogy and like most guys my age, l had affection for it throughout my teens. At some point though, I outgrew it… probably around the time Episode One was released.

When Bioware announced their new MMO based on Star Wars, I wasn’t excited. In fact, I wasn’t even the least bit interested. I checked out some of the comments from Star Wars fanboys proclaiming it would be the greatest game ever made and gradually my eyes kind of glazed over until I found something to read about involving orcs and swords. Now, having seen the recent footage of Star Wars: The Old Republic I have to admit, I’m pretty excited. It’s an advantage of having low expectations.

The game doesn’t appear to reinvent the wheel in any way, but it appears to be focused on things that can be lacking in other MMORPGs, mainly story and making you feel like you’re actually playing a part in a larger world. If you haven’t seen it, I recommend you check out the footage on YouTube. As I said, there’s nothing totally mind-blowing – the combat in particular seems to be typical fantasy MMO fare, complete with toolbars although it does however have a neat cover system that I think will add a new dynamic to fighting mobs. Most of the time in MMOs, you’re pretty much just standing there and clicking on your toolbars, the cover system will provide a certain amount of in combat movement.

The thing that intrigues me most about the game are the story elements. For one thing, this is the first fully voiced MMORPG and promises an immersive story experience. The footage shows a lot of conversations with a Mass Effect style conversation system and branching storylines. In conversations, you’re given choices which will affect the outcome of quests and the game world around you. This is the area where the game won me over.

From the footage, I do have several concerns however. First of all, the game is meant to be an MMO and the demonstration doesn’t really give any idea how the game will play out socially or with masses of other players. At this stage, it looks like an enjoyable single player game and not much else. I can’t help but wonder how social interaction will work when you’re progressing along a path. Secondly, just how big will this game be? Too big? For a game of this scope to be fully voiced, surely we’re looking at masses of space. MMOs are weird hard disk eating things, slowly growing with each patch until you don’t know where all your storage space went. How big an install are we looking at here?

These concerns are very minor as we’re bound to find out the answers soon enough. Either way Bioware have shown once again why they’re one of the best developers working today and I’m looking forward to more reveals in the months to come.

Negócio de ouro.

A LucasArts lançou no Steam, por 10 dólares, o Jogo do Ano de 2003, Knights of the Old Republic, da BioWare. O jogo ainda é bem leve e roda bem na maioria dos PCs por aí. Uma boa pedida para os fãs matarem a saudade e novos jogadores se prepararem para The Old Republic.

[Direto do HardCore Gaming]

You’ll probably remember the Choose Your Adventure books from the early eighties, but even if you’ve never read one there is a likelihood you’ve played an RPG with branching threads such as Knights Of The Old Republic. Developing a thick skin is important in writing, so this is where I get most of the problems with my material out into the open so you can laugh and point. Feel free to wonder how the hell I manage to think non-linear in plot, ’cause I’m still struggling to explain this clearly.

Back when I was writing little games (pieces of shit, each and every one of them) I managed to come up with at least twenty ending for any given scenario. The art of thinking differently came in mighty handy, but transferring any talent for five or six lines of text at a time is no use whatsoever in novel writing. I’ve allowed myself to expand ideas into an ever-increasing word count, then follow each possibility to see which one gives me more story to play with.

A quick example:

Detective Gaines stares at the explosive device, carefully weighing up his options. The wires are too complex to rush heedlessly into the disarming process, too many variables to consider. Tick tock, tick tock… The explosion takes out half the building. Gaines’ hand, hovering over the device at the moment of impact, is obliterated instantly, followed by the rest of his body.

or…

Detective Gaines stares at the explosive device, carefully weighing up his options. The wires are too complex to rush heedlessly into the disarming process, too many variables to consider. Tick tock, tick tock… His hand reaches forward, instinctively the detective pulls the blue wire free. The blast takes out half the building, sending shattered and twisted debris across the street.

maybe even…

Detective Gaines stares at the explosive device, carefully weighing up his options. The wires are too complex to rush heedlessly into the disarming process, too many variables to consider. Tick tock, tick tock… Gaines, a bead of sweat falling from the tip of his nose, realizes there is no answer to the puzzle in front of him. Turning, he runs from the room, runs from the building. There is silence. The device was a prank.

There’s nothing wrong with any of those (well, maybe once I clean up the prose a little), but deciding which one gets left into a story is a big challenge for me. There’s a neat analogy that I like – A good chess player knows all the possibilities thirty moves in advance. Writing ain’t chess, but it is just as hard. Maybe more-so because the rules are fluid and intangible to some extent. Having a fine sense of irony, I know I have conditioned my brain to do this kind of thing, so it is my own damn fault.

It’s crazy. Go on, say it. Lemme hear you.

The outcome of this type of writing-on-the-fly seems to be elevated word-counts and multiple endings, which doesn’t help in any way, shape or form for a structured three (or five) act novel, encompassing everything I need while remaining on this side of readable. A possible consideration (which I’m slightly embarrassed to bring up in public, but I did say I had a thick skin) is adding several epilogue-type bits at the end with all the possible endings I have come up with.

Do I want multiple endings? No. For a start, and this is the ego kicking in, I won’t be able to write a sequel. It’s a dumb reason to try avoiding this type of thing, but it is what it is. The second Deus Ex game fucked up the future of the franchise for a long time because of the multiple endings which were completely incompatible with each other. The first game wasn’t so bad, because the ending could be resolved somewhat, but the second…

You see my problem?