Diablo III Improvements (hopefully?)

So, Blizzard has finally released patch 1.0.4 for Diablo III, and the fans are finally back again to play the game.

And about damn time too.

While my initial impressions of the game were good, that disappeared pretty quickly the moment we reached Inferno mode.

No endgame, ridiculously tough enemies, over-reliability on the Auction House, shitty loot drops and the list goes on and on. I won't bore you with the details.

The game really went to hell when I died huh? -Deckard Cain RIP

The most important thing is that Blizzard has managed to bring back some of the fans with the newest patch: A huge list of buffs to skills (especially the Witch Doctor), modified Legendary drop rates and unique affixes, a new Paragon system for some sense of achievement, and buffed item affixes.

Frankly though, there is still a lot of work to be done to improve Diablo III.

So, here are some improvements that I propose:

Make Nephalem's Valor more flexible

Now, the concept behind this is really good. For every elite mob you kill, you gain this buff which increases your magic find, gold find, and experience gain which lasts for 30 minutes, and gets refreshed with every elite kill. And it stacks up to 5 times.

I died for your greed...and you call us monsters....

Which is awesome, and encourages players to continue to go from mob to mob and get better loot in the progress.

In theory anyways.

The quality of the loot aside (more on that later), there is a limitation on the buff: you cannot change your skills, active nor passive, or you will lose ALL your Nephalem Valor stacks.

Now, the new skill system is different from Diablo II, in that you get access to all your skills, so you can swap your skills to suit the situation, or just for fun or you need some single target spells for bosses instead of mobs....

And, I think you should be able to see the problem here.

A lot of people say that the fun starts in Inferno, which I agree, but the way Nephalem's Valor works, makes it a bit of a pain in the ass, instead of being flexible, now most players have to use similar loadouts, so that they can take on mobs and tough bosses.

Which kinda defeats the purpose of having a flexible skill system in the first place. Though I understand the reasoning behind it, it still feels like its limiting the players' fun.

Why should players be punished for trying out new and fun builds?

Suggestions:

1. Take away only one stack for every skill change, it's less punishing that way.
2. Give us the ability to swap skillsets, that does not compromise the valor stacks.

Fix the Loot

This is quite a biggie, as the loot drop is still a huge problem. The latest patch is just a small step.

I would really like to have this.

There are simply not enough Set/Legendary items to go around all 60 character levels, and most of any good ones are at very high levels only. Hell, even low level Set/Legendary/Unique items in Diablo II still had plenty of uses at high levels due to their unique abilities.

White/Normal items are completely useless as well, they can't even sell for a decent price. At least in Diablo II, the high tier white items could be sold as vendor trash for a high price and can be used in crafting: Charsi the blacksmith could imbue the normal item to turn it into a Rare/Yellow item; a socketed Normal/White is the basis for powerful Runewords and so forth.

Let's not even get into the Gray/Utter-Rubbish-Shit items. I'm not even sure why they're even in the game.

And the complete random-ness of the generated affixes do not help. Diablo III is very gear-intensive, having superior gear is vital for survival and combat effectiveness for all classes. With that as the case, for some reason, class-based gear will roll stats that are completely useless for that class (IE: a Wizard-only hat for some God-forsaken reason will sometimes roll Strength or Dexterity and no Intelligence just to spite you).

And if you were lucky enough to get the exact amount of affixes that were completely suited to your character...you might just find that the numbers are pathetic. Like a level 60 Monk who finds a fist-weapon with 1.5k damage, but only 50 Dexterity, 40 Vitality, 30 Life-on-Hit and Reduced Level Requirement.

Worse still is in Inferno mode. A mode that is ONLY accessible by level 60 characters (mind you, level 60 is currently the maximum level), but for some reason, the level of the item drops for ALL of Inferno mode Act I till IV is ranged from level 51 to level 63.

The Treasure Goblin mocks me because he knows that I will try my best to kill him only to find shit loot.
FUCK YOU TREASURE GOBLIN.

Understandably, you can't make every drop epic, or the game will be too easy (and break their precious Auction House economies), but the range of the numbers and affixes is still ridiculous.

This one probably requires the most fixing, and will be the most difficult to balance, so it will take time to fix. So, here are my thoughts on it.

Suggestions:

1. Find a new system for the White items, such as salvaging or the Blacksmith (who is still Goddamn useless). If Blizzard had time to come up with the Paragon system (which I think was already being planned, but they rushed it out in order to help save the game), they could surely come up with something simple for the White items.
2. Either remove the low range items from Inferno mode, or put a higher minimum value for the affixes for the items. It's damn frustrating to find an epic level 63 item, only to find that it gives you shit values; or finding two level 55 items after defeating the Goddamn Lord of Terror.
3. Remove some of the affixes which are totally useless: Gold/Health globe pick up range, Health Globe, Thorns (only useful for Barbarians and a very specific Witch Doctor build).
4. Give some personalities to the weapon! In Diablo II, elemental damage did something (Frost slows, Poison leaves damage over time, Fire was consistent damage, Lightning has extreme ranges of damage); In Diablo III, they mean nothing, no different from a vanilla +damage modifier.
5. Class specific-items should have class-specific bonuses!! That's the reason the items in Diablo II felt much more powerful. As of now, class-specific items are 90% trash items: can't be used by other classes and the class that can use them won't because of the shit values.

Make the Death Timer Consistent

When you die, a timer pops up before you can revive. Now, this is not a problem usually if you only die say every 10 minutes or so. The timer is usually only 3 seconds long.

However, if a player dies consistently to say...a tough elite mob with really nasty affixes (Demonic Tremors with Horde, Knockback, Mortar and Desecrator)

Nasty doesn't even begin to count it.

But, as you die within a short amount of time, the timer gets longer and longer. Until it can reach a ridiculous 30 second wait.

Which is fucking pointless, as elite mobs now had no more enrage timers and does not auto-heal anymore (thank God for that). So, the point of the death timer is now moot.

Just keep the timer at consistently 3 seconds and players will be happy.

Witch Doctors Need Some Love!

Patch 1.0.4 was a great patch for Witch Doctor players everywhere: pets were buffed to be actually viable again past Normal mode, a lot of skills were given some much needed buffs and base Mana regeneration was increased greatly.

I finally felt like I was having fun playing my Witch Doctor, instead of being punished.

Although I would like to play and/or punish her, if you know what I mean...

This one is on a more personal experience, since I'm playing the Witch Doctor. The Witch Doctor class is a Jack-of-all-trades, with both close-ranged and ranged magic, tank/caster hybrid, and really crazy spells (zombie charging bears, anyone?).

Still, even with the buffs, the Witch Doctor is still a rather tough class to play with due to their design.

First off, they're the only class to NOT have resource generating primary skills, as compared to the other four classes. And, they in fact, COST Mana (the Witch Doctor's resource). To generate Mana, only two runes out of the TWENTY runes for Primary skills can do so, and their damage output is not higher than the other classes. In fact, due to the animation, its usually WORSE. There are other skills which can help with recovering mana, but generally cost more than they can recover, or barely covers the cost.

It really is, in fact, a shitty version of Arcane Power.

You can make an argument for the Wizard, as their Signature spells do not cost them Arcane Power, but does not generate them either. AND Wizards get special affixes which recovers AP with critical hits (provided that you can find them on the right gear). They also have a passive which lets them gain AP when they deal damage with their Signature spells. 

In addition, while the Mana pool increases with every level up, the Mana cost for their spells also increases, so increasing Mana pool sizes does jackshit. And the Mana regeneration is still barely enough for a heavy caster class, though the buff has made the game slightly better.

The Witch Doctor has ridiculously long cooldowns on a lot of their skills, especially the two minute cooldown on the Flayers and Big Bad Voodoo spell. Other classes also suffer from that, but those spells are generally extremely powerful, and is balanced that way. The Witch Doctors....not so much.

Which leads to the next point for the Witch Doctors: their skills still need a large damage buff. Currently, only  the Zombie Charger - Zombie Bear rune does the damage and justifies its high Mana cost. Everything else does rather pitiful damage, or is just too damn situational to use properly.

Some are just utter crap.

I'm looking at you, Toad of Hugeness Rune!!!

So here are a few suggestions for improving the Witch Doctor: 

1. The Mana resource needs improvement. Either the regeneration rate goes up, or the Mana pool increases at a slower rate per character level while the Mana costs stay constant. Or at the very least make their Primary skills cost no Mana or generates Mana.
2. Buff the damage for Witch Doctor skills. It does not have to be a huge increase (although that would be great), simply adding like 20% extra damage would help immensely.
3. Alternatively, reduce or remove the cooldown for some of the skills. Grasp of the Dead comes to mind, it's a decent crowd control skill, but the cooldown and low damage is just too long to warrant a place in the limited skillbar.
4. Some skills really require complete redesigns to be considered viable: Toad of Hugeness is honestly complete crap; most of the Hex runes are quite useless; and some of the passives are rather lacklustre as well (although the passive issue is hardly unique to the Witch Doctor I must admit)
5. Pets are awesome now, although they're not perfect yet, as certain spells still kill them instantly, despite the new patch, and if the enemies has the Reflect Damage affix, the damage gets reflected onto  the Witch Doctor for a world of hurt.

Future Content?

I'm hoping that in the future, whether via patches or expansions, Blizzard will release some of the following, old and new concepts:

1. Runewords: I enjoyed the Runes and Runeword system in Diablo II, it gave a sense of accomplishment whenever I finished building one after finding the runes.
2. Charms: Perhaps they can be given special slots in the inventory page. Having them fill up the backpack with the other items would just make things messy, as there is much more loot in Diablo III.
3. The Mystic Artisan: She was dummied out in the end, but was suppose to be an Artisan to craft amulets and rings, apparently she could also add sockets to equipment.
4. Buff the Blacksmith: He's still damn useless except for early levels. Completely random affixes for bloody ridiculous prices. Either lower the price, or give us more control over what kind of affixes that could come up, even if it means increasing the price or requiring more crafting material. At least we won't feel as frustrated.
5. More dungeons: This one should be obvious, more special events or dungeons for variety.
6. More randomized and larger maps: Currently the maps does not really feel that big, save for a few specific maps, and it's not really as randomized as we would like to think.
7. Necromancer!! : Well, I loved playing the Necromancer in Diablo II, so I would like to see him come back in some form for Diablo III.
8. More Acts and new classes: Comes with the territory of new expansions.
9. Waypoints: Put. More. Goddam. Waypoints. Sometimes I find myself spawning literally half a world away after I die, because the Waypoint did not trigger, or because there was no Waypoint while on the way to my destination.
10. Auction House in-game NPC or function: While I do not use the Auction House for buying gear, I do sell gear on it, but currently once you are in-game, you cannot access it at all. So, I think it would make things a lot easier for players (and not lose our precious Nephalem Valor stacks...).
11. PvP: A lot of people want this, though personally I do not care much for it. But if it makes people happy, then it should be implemented soon. 
12. Offline mode: I hate the fucking lag.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

Currently, I'm happy to say that Diablo III is starting to be better, lots more work to be done of course, but the direction is getting somewhere.

Let's face it, Blizzard fucked up with Diablo III initially, it was fun at first, but it soon became apparent that a lot of things just weren't designed properly, or lacked foresight.

I blame the Auction House actually. It seems that the game was designed centered around it, and as it turns out, a lot of people are not happy about being forced to use it.

I believe that Blizzard should start providing options that does not translate to "spend money on the Auction House to progress". They don't have to eliminate it, but they definitely need to provide much better alternatives.

At any rate, we will have to see what Blizzard does for Diablo III in the future.

In the meantime, I have 95 more Paragon levels to catch up.

Time to boot up Diablo III....

SON OF A BITCH.

Diablo III Open Beta Weekend

Diablo III was available to the public this weekend to whet our appetites for the actual game coming next month.

Of course we were limited to defeating King Leoric and a level cap, but that didn't stop millions of players flooding the open beta.

Me, included.

Hello ladies...I'm here to steal your boyfriends from you again.

There were a few problems with getting D3 launched though, something to do with the agent.exe updating setup files thingy. It took me about 2-3 hours worth of Googling to get it fixed, and even then, I'm still not sure exactly what was the problem was.

Still, after 3 hours of downloading 3 gigabytes worth of data, I was off to save the world of Sanctuary. At least, whatever that was allowed in the open beta.

Unfortunately I only had time to test out the Witch Doctor and the Wizard during the open beta weekend, but it was ok 'cause I had fun and those two classes were the ones that I was really interested in anyway.

Bikini goodness.

More bikini goodness

Unlike some other people.

Andy, holy shit dude.

So, what has changed? Let's take a look.

Skills

Instead of the skill tree we have back in Diablo II, we now have a more linear skill progression: you get one new skill everytime you level up, and a skill rune which enhances or modifies a certain skill every other level (starting from level 6).

At first glance, it seems to be much more limiting and simple, but that is not the case in my opinion. Now you have every skill available to you, unlike in D2 where you have to invest skill points into skills to have them available.

Many a times in D2, a Sorceress specializing only in Cold spells have met their doom or have had to request help from friends when they realise that a third of the enemies in Hell mode are immune to Cold damage.

In D3, you won't have that problem as all the skills will be available to you. Eventually.

The only thing limiting you is that you can only have 6 active skills at any one time; however, if one fight proves to be difficult and requires a change of tactics, all you have to do is to get somewhere safe, change those skills and you can go back into the fray again.

Like so.

So far, I found the Witch Doctor ridiculously fun to play, with all her zombie dogs, bats of fire, zombie hands, frogs and zombie spiders thrown at her enemies. It's simply addictive.

You might have noticed in the above picture, there are two new shortcuts between the skill keys and the other menus: the one marked Q is for health potions and the one on the right is the Town Portal key.

Yes...now Town Portal is now a skill by itself, no more tomes/scrolls of Town Portal taking up valuable space in the inventory.

The health potions shortcut is for emergencies where you can't pick up health orbs during combat. And you can't spam it either due to its cooldown, which is just long enough that you will want to use it only once or twice during major battles.

There are no mana potions of any sort, since every class has their own resource to use from and it regenerates by itself based on different conditions.

In D3, the skills are now directly based on your weapon damage, even for spells. This makes weapons all the more important for every class, and keeps the spellcasters still relevant even when in higher levels, which was a main problem for the magic users in D2.

By far the new Skills system is much more intuitive and more fun; in D2, it was very easy to fumble over the skills selection, as you can only have two skills at any one time (on the left and right mouse button) and to choose the rest, you have to assign them to keys F1 to F8.

Some people have complained that this removes customization, which I disagree. Everyone has the same pool of skills to choose from, your skillset now defines your playing style, as every skill is now useful. Compare to D2, where a multitude of skills were frankly rubbish, and to have any chance of actually surviving in the higher difficulties meant that most players had to follow pretty much the same skill build.

So much for customization aye?

Graphics

D3's graphics...well...they're...fine.

That's the best I can say about it.

The character models are rather lacklustre. It could be better, the textures and the polygon count feels lower than it should.

I'll still tap that though.

So D3 does not win much points there, but Blizzard has done a damn fine job of setting the mood/atmosphere and special effects.

The inside of the Tristram Cathedral is beautifully evil, with a giant hole straight down the center where a star has fallen through. And while I feel Blizzard has not done a good job with the player characters, Leoric the Skeleton King is rendered with much more detail: from the moment you put the crown on his decayed body, his armor and bones come together as he stands up as mighty as he was in real life, cracks his neck from decades of stillness, and lets loose a tornado of carnage.

Someone bring me my brown pants

The spells feel powerful as they rip through your enemies, and every spell is lovingly detailed. Lightning attacks will leave corpses charred black after their life has been snuffed out.

A little bit of butter...some garlic...perfect.

And the environment is now rather destructible, everything from gravestones and coffins lying around, to even destructible walls and chandelier ropes that will give you that slight extra edge against your enemies.

After some time, you even learn to recognise some of the tougher bosses by just noticing a small golden selection ring underneath them.

Weapons would even display a different colored background based on what elemental damage they are imbued with.

And like before, the color of the items name would indicate its rareness: blue means Magical, yellow means Rare item and so forth.

They are all very simple visual cues that are easy to pick up and familiarise.

It's the little things that make the D3 experience a clear winner over D2 in this case.


Gameplay

Now for the main part.

So far, the gameplay in D3 is solid.

It's the same old joy of playing D2: leveling up and playing around with new spells, gathering gold and shiny new items.

Only now, its BETTER.

Oh I just can't wait to see what shiny loot will come out of your ass.

The inventory system now carries more stuff and is easier to organise; the spells are now better and more fun; gathering new loot is STILL as exciting as ever, and now gold actually has use in-game.

Previously, in D2, gold served only two functions: repairing your items and reviving your (constantly dead) hireling. Heck, if you were a spellcaster, you probably won't need to repair your equipment at all.

In D3 however, gold and unwanted magical items are now an important part of gameplay thanks to the inclusion of the BLACKSMITH.

Ooo...shiny...

The Blacksmith can craft new weapons and armor (with a set amount of random magical properties) if you have the right amount of raw material, which in turn is gathered by salvaging any magical item, destroying it in the process. Gold is required for crafting the item as well, and for training the Blacksmith, which will open up new items for crafting.

This new aspect of gameplay is a welcome change, as it now ensures that every outing is rewarding: even if you can't find any suitable magical item to replace your current gear, you can always salvage them and craft something new.

Blizzard seems to have taken a leaf from World of Warcraft for this particular Blacksmith aspect, well...more than a few leaves I believe, while designing D3.

The chat system in D3 is very similar to the one in WoW, right down to the exact same buttons on the left of the chat box. Heck, they even used the same font colors.

However, it is a system that works, so there's nothing to complain there.

They've added an achievement system, also similar to WoW and Starcraft II, for players who are obsessed with these kind of achievements, or who have apparently run out of things to do in D3.

It does come with certain rewards though.

So far, some achievements reward you extra experience points for doing things like killing multiple enemies with one attack, killing a lot of enemies within a short span of time and destroying objects in game. The rest of the achievements seem to be for bragging purposes and a certain few allow you to change the design of your banner.

The quests system has received a huge overhaul in D3. While the quests are still more or less as linear as it was before, the objectives are much clearer and if it is nearby, it will appear on the minimap.

In some dungeons, you will receive new quests in them and you can do it right away.

Even in death, there are couples who suffer from sexual deprivation.

Unlike in D2, quests now actually give experience points as rewards, and they're a large chunk at that, thankfully. Which makes leveling up far less of a grind than it is back in D2.

One thing that is very well executed in D3 is the co-op function.

It's now as simple as clicking on your friends list and joining your him/her in slaughtering the minions of Hell. Just like that.

Two bitches out on a quest to kill more bitches

If, however for any reason, you do NOT have any friends who owns D3 (my condolences), then you have the option of making your game a public game (where random strangers on the same quest as you join your game), or joining a public game.

The latter requires you to go to the main menu, choose the quest you want to do, click on the public game button, and then you're off with three other random strangers carving a path through demons and ghosts of Hell.

The only thing is that D3 only allows up to 4-player co-op, half of the maximum party size in D2 (that's 8 for the mathematically challenged readers out there).

Although, to be honest, even with only four people, the game can be quite chaotic, especially when you have the casters throwing spells and the Demon Hunters raining arrows all over the place. So there may be some merit to the limit Blizzard has placed on co-op.

The seamless way D3 goes into multiplayer is a huge plus compared to D2, and so far I have not felt too bad a lag while playing in public games. Although only time will tell whether that will hold up when D3 is finally launched.

Now there was one thing that most D2 players will agree on is that in D2, the information displayed in-game was pretty much less than accurate (to put it lightly): about the only thing the character stat sheet displayed correctly was the name and the player level.

So, Blizzard to completely overhaul that in D3 and now we have this:

That is...quite a lot of numbers...

But don't let the huge chunk of information overwhelm you, it is apparently very accurate and makes much more sense than the D2 character sheets. It even displays how long it takes for your weapon to make a single attack.

In RPGs, information is a critical aspect that is sometimes hidden from some players, but I feel that developers should be more open with that information for players to make better decisions. In this case, Blizzard has made the right move.

Gameplay for D3: A definite satisfaction.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

To conclude, every aspect of the game is a huge improvement over its predecessor. Whatever faults Diablo II had, Blizzard seems to have taken note and addressed them appropriately.

Of course it took them 12 years to come up with the sequel, so they really had a lot to live up to.

In fact, the wait was so long, Duke Nukem Forever actually shipped before they did. How messed up is that?

Overall, I found Diablo III a real joy to play with, and this open beta weekend only made me want more.

Damn you Blizzard.

Now I only have to wait 3 more weeks to save the world.

AHHHHHHHHHH KILL IT!! KILL IT WITH FIRE!!

Mass Effect 3 review

One of the most anticipated games of 2012, Mass Effect 3 is the ending to the epic sci-fi trilogy that is Mass Effect.

It has been ages since any franchise has generated as much a huge fanbase as this. Sure, there was Halo, Gears of War, Call of Duty etc...but honestly, when it came down to storyline and establishing an entire universe, Mass Effect is king of the hill.

Now the question is: Does Mass Effect 3 live up to its incredible hype? Does it deliver the satisfying ending that everyone is hoping for?

Lets find out.

Even in the far future, global warming is still an environmental issue on Earth.

Gameplay

ME3 brings back some older mechanics and improves on Mass Effect 2's combat system. Weapon mods make a return (YAY!), bringing more options to individual weapon loadouts as compared to the previous game.

Now you can add scopes, heat sinks, stabilizers, extra thermal clips and even knife attachments! Each weapon can have up to two different mods.

You can even add scopes to a HANDGUN.

Weapon mods can be brought from shops or found during missions just lying around, in addition to armor pieces and new weapons littered around the battlefields. So, it really pays to explore the environment to reap these rewards.

Unlike ME2, ME3's weapons are much more varied and more fun to use in combat. They also implemented ME1's weapons upgrade rank system, but much less cluttered but simply having the superior ranked weapon replace the inferior one. Thus removing one hell of an inventory nightmare that was prevalent in the first game.

Also, grenades make a return. Finally they're not the shitty frisbee thingy that we last saw in ME1. On the other hand, thermal clips make a return, but since the game is much more generous with the amount of thermal clips littered around, I guess it's not too bad a thing.

The armor system more or less follows the one from ME2, the only difference is that whatever DLC armor you had from the last game (Terminus Armor, Collector Armor, Blood Dragon Armor etc) will be available for purchase from various shops.

And we have lost the manliest armor of all time.

Generally, the combat in ME3 is much more varied, more challenging, and overall, more fun than its predecessors. In the previous games, only a few battles were challenging enough that simply shooting at the enemies without any tactics would pretty end badly (example: ME1's battle with Saren, ME2's Human-Reaper hybrid thingy).

In this game however, the firefights can end very badly if you decide to just gungho it without using your powers properly. The AI is smarter for one thing, and the various enemies now have special abilities which require tactics to defeat.

Especially Cerberus forces, which had taken some lessons in badassery apparently, probably due to Shepard's short time with them, and they have picked up some useful lessons.

The lowly Cerberus Assault Troopers are their cannon fodder grunts, but they are usually supported by Cerberus Centurions that come with shields and lay down thick smoke grenades to fuck with your vision. Later in the game, they will be accompanied by Cerberus Nemesis with sniper rifles or Cerberus Combat Engineers (which are pretty much the player character's Engineer class) who lay down turrets OR the Cerberus Phantom with guns for hands and an instant kill katana.

Sometimes, they bring out the big guns. Literally. By dropping the Atlas mechs to go against you.

It has always been my dream job to pilot a mech. Damn you, you lucky basterd.

And the best thing is? YOU CAN HIJACK THAT MOTHAFUCKA.

Even the Reapers are not pulling their punches. Now that they have made their presence known, the first thing they did is harvest the other races and start making husks out of them. The resulting husks are some of the toughest enemies in the game.

And slightly nightmarish.

Thank you Bioware. As if the Broodmothers from Dragon Age wasn't bad enough.

The scanning minigame returns! This time, the least time-consuming and more fun of the three. Third time's the charm apparently.

Now the Normandy scans the planet systems, like a radar, if there is anything interesting, EDI will point it out. Usually it's either more fuel from destroyed fuel stations or War Assets to scan on the planet. If the planet has something interesting, you will revert to the planet-scanning minigame from ME2. 

However, if the planetary system is under siege from the Reapers, you risk getting discovered by them everytime you "ping". Eventually, they will come after you and you will need to run.

It's much more simplified and by far the best implemented. It's much more fun and does not break the flow of the game. No more time wasted by spending untold minutes trying to mine some goddam minerals.

ME3 also made changes to the skill trees so that they are not as rigid as before, and by the 4th level of the skill, you get to choose one of the two perks that would modify the skill.

Like so.

 The changes are mostly just choosing between more damage, shorter cooldowns or longer durations though, so its not to say they are a hugely customizable. Only a few skills have drastic changes, like the Sentry Turret skill for Engineers.

So, overall, gameplay wise, Mass Effect 3 is probably the best of the trilogy so far. Fittingly. Bioware took what worked and made it better, and removed the unsavoury elements.

Storyline

Now for the main draw of ME3: The storyline.

After all, this is the final part of Shepard's story. The Reapers invade and take over Earth, and Shepard has to rally all of the galactic races together to fight back against them and save the galaxy before they take out every organic being in the galaxy. Again.

No pressure.

One thing I have noticed about ME3 is that compared to the previous two games, it's a lot more linear. And that's saying something. In fact, it has gotten progressively more linear.

In ME1, you could recruit Liara as the last companion despite being told to go do her recruitment mission very early on. You could also trigger other important missions in a different order.

In ME2, you could only recruit maybe 2-3 members during any particular part of the game. You weren't allowed to recruit the others until the game gave you access to the particular mission or star system.

In this game, the game only gave you one priority mission at a time. There are other side missions which you can choose to do or not, but will affect your War Assets and the characters that you meet. But in the context of this game, Bioware probably made the right choice, they wanted to make an epic ending after all.

If players were given a lot of free choice, it'll probably break the epic flow of the story. Thus, ME3 kinda just nudges players down the linear path with a few side quests littered about.

If there's one thing Bioware is good at, it's the stories. They have always been outrageously popular for their ability to tell stories, and Mass Effect 3 does not disappoint.

Well hellloooooo Ashley...

By far my favorite parts of the game are when Bioware focuses on the people. The way they interact with each other, not just with Shepard but with everyone else as well.

On the Normandy, the NPCs don't just sit around waiting for you to talk to them. Well at least not all the time. They do interact with each other, and I spent quite some time just standing there and listening to them talk, which really hits home how well written these characters are.

Joker and Garrus trading completely politically incorrect jokes with each other, which includes nods from Bioware about the silly things from the previous games; Joker asking Liara over the intercom about her hair scalp functions; Cortez and James (two new characters in ME3) joking about the pros and cons of the Mako and the Hammerhead. etc

My favorite scenes involve Garrus and Tali. In a lovingly endearing bonding moment, Garrus and Shepard decide to just break the rules and went shooting at bottles over the top of the Presidium at the Citadel. You could choose to miss it or hit it on target. I chose to miss it, and Garrus was jumping with joy declaring: "MY NAME IS GARRUS VAKARIAN, AND THIS IS MY FAVORITE SPOT ON THE CITADEL!!"

It is a ridiculously cute moment for the both of them.

As for Tali, well I romanced her *ahem*.

Look at those delicious hips...mmhmmmmm..

Towards the end of the game, as Shepard becomes more and more worn out by having the burdens of the galaxy on his shoulders. Tali was the one that stood by his side and helped him stay strong. One of Tali's lines still stands out in my mind long after that scene has passed:

Tali: "I want....more time."


The way her line was delivered was extremely good, but it was the simplicity of it that drove it home for me.

The named characters are not the only ones that are well written, completely random NPCs in the background will talk with each other, and every single one of them has a sad tale: the PTSD Asari soldier talking to her therapist; The Batarian comforting the Human female; the Human soldier requesting a transfer from fighting Cerberus forces after she found out her brother has joined them; two Turian C-sec officers who are also best friends who decide to resign so that they can go back to their homeworld of Palaven, just so they can search for their families together.

Garrus and Tali remain my favorite characters in ME3, but I spent time listening to these random background chatter, immersed in their dilemma.

They somehow made The Illusive Man a tragic figure by the end.
THAT is an accomplishment.

The war with the Reapers has taken its toll on the galaxy, and it shows. Everyone is affected.

Yet, at the same time, Bioware never forgot about the humor, acknowledging the memes that spawned from the games, and the silly little things that caught gamers attention.

Which is a shame, because the ending was not satisfactory at all.

Mass Effect 3, the final battle, the conclusion to the epic story that is Commander "BADASS" Shepard lasted all of 10 minutes.

Probably less.

Without spoiling anything, right at the end of the game, you are forced to make choices. The choices pretty much end the same way.

The worst part was that there was no closure. And was not exactly an ending that made any damn sense.

This was literally what I looked like and what I said when I saw the ending.
Minus the people in the background of course.

I feel a bit cheated to be honest.

It was not because it was not the ending I expected, in fact I was surprised by the turn of events when they revealed the purpose of the Reapers and why they do the things they do.

Nor was it because it was far from a happy ending, as the game repeatedly knocked into my skull: "You can't save everyone." I already had to make very difficult choices throughout the game, it would be obvious the last one would be one of the most difficult.

It just feels that everything that I've done (THREE GAMES WORTH!!) was for naught.

It didn't matter what I did, it was like towards the end, I didn't have a choice in changing the outcome. In fact, a number of things didn't make sense either.

Goddam. It's Evangelion all over again.

And multiple endings my ass.

There were suppose to be 16 different endings, according to Bioware, and after looking up all of them.

THEY WERE ALL THE SAME. WTF.

They were only different in minor ways. And apparently there was a secret ending, but to get that, you have to do things in a specific manner to get.

What the hell Bioware??

The most appropriate picture for this moment.

Why do I have to do things "correctly" to get the best ending? Player choice was suppose one of the main draws of the entire Mass Effect series.

And it got thrown out the window. But still, that is a minor gripe compared to the ending.

After three games, the ending just showed nothing.

You have no idea what happened to Shepard.

You have no idea what happened to the entire galaxy.

And to add insult to injury, you get a fucking screen with less than a paragraph of text. That tell you you can continue Shepard's journey via DLC.

WHAT? SERIOUSLY?? WHAT THE FUCK IS THAT???

I think the worst part of it all is that simply...the ending took your choices away. It didn't matter what you did in the entire Mass Effect trilogy, everyone will reach the exact same ending chapter.

Did I mention that the 16 endings are functionally the same and made no damn sense whatsoever?

Still the most appropriate picture for this moment.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 


To summarize Mass Effect 3
The good

• Epic storyline build up to the end.
• Graphics are overall pretty good, especially facial animations
• Awesome music
• Awesome fights: Fighting a Reaper on foot!!!
• Bioware finally gets the perfect balance of RPG and action-cover shooting
• Characterization/development is top of the crop
• Optimized engine means that the loading time is almost nonexistent

The bad

• Texture are pretty pixelated up close and noticeable texture loading
• The ending....just...the ending.

As you can see, pretty much the ONLY bad thing about this game is well...the ending.

It's as if Bioware, just like Commander Shepard, just couldn't take the pressure any more and just went "Fuck it" and that's how we gamers end up with Mass Effect 3's ending.

So, is Mass Effect 3 the best game of the year? Maybe. Everything else it does is just absolutely perfect. The storyline. The gameplay.

Best game ever? Not Mass Effect 3.
No doubt though, that it will be close to the top of anyone's list. However, I feel that ending is such a huge setback that prevents it from being there. At least now without gripe or ill feeling.

The trilogy as a whole however, is definitely something that should be representative of what video games are capable of, and will stand the test of time.

The entire Mass Effect trilogy for best game ever? 

DEFINITELY.

Goodbye Commander Shepard.
It has been an honor to serve you.

Final Fantasy XIII-2 review

After the fanbase-breaking Final Fantasy XIII, it actually came as a surprise that Square Enix made a sequel to it.

However, they made promises to fix what was considered bad design decisions in the previous entry.

The question is: Does the oddly titled game fix what was broken?

It does. But unfortunately, it also tried to add too much, and fix what ain't broken.

Storyline

The game picks up three years after the end of Final Fantasy XIII, but for some reason, Lightning has disappeared and many people believe she had sacrificed herself along with Vanille and Fang to save Cocoon.

Except Serah, who is the only person who does not believe it, as she saw Lightning alive at the end of the events of the previous game. Worse still, Snow, Hope, and Sazh are now separated from her as well, off doing their own thing, for one reason or the other.

But then one night, Serah has a vision of Lightning in her dream just as her new home, New Bodhum is attacked by monsters. Then for some damn reason, her clothes change.

Honestly, was the costume change necessary?

And then TADA!! Noel comes out of nowhere, helps Serah and tells her that he met Lightning and he is suppose to help bring Serah to her. From there, the story starts.

Now, I won't spoil too much of the storyline here, partly 'cause that would be really bad of me, but mostly because I DON'T REALLY UNDERSTAND THE DAMN STORY.

A lot of things are not clear in the story, such as the existence of the time travel gates, the artefacts, the Goddess Etro, the Farseers, Academia and so forth.

Compared to FF13, the storyline is far less focused here. The basic plot is fine: Serah and Noel have to go find her sister, and stop Caius from destroying the world!! There.

But when it comes to explaining beyond that, the story falters.

And, somehow, despite only having only two characters to play with, the game failed to bring out anything meaningful to them. They feel rather flat.

Not everything was flat in game though.

Not because of poor writing, but rather, the storyline does not focus on the characters but keep emphasizing on Finding Lightning and most of the time, the mission amounts to nothing more than just "Go there and make things right in the timeline". Which is rather weird, considering that FF13's main draw was that it was far more character-centric and were more compelling.

At some points in the game, the storytelling shines. *Spoiler Alert*
At one point in the game, you, as Serah, see Noel at his timeline, where he was one of the last few humans still alive about 700 years into the future.

The bleak setting, combined with the sad music, painted a rather character-defining moment for Noel. Suddenly, Noel's narrative about changing the future for the better, are no more just empty words sprouted over and over as Noel walks across the desert, alone after Caius left, and Yeul died (again).

Unfortunately, the game does not do this often enough, and thus loses a lot of focus. A bit of a 180 turn there compared to the last game, for the worse.


Gameplay

A lot of changes to the gameplay mechanics were made in the sequel.

One of the more significant changes is that the monsters are now not on the battlefield anymore, well, at least most of them. Only a few very powerful monsters are actually there, but these are few and far in-between.

We meet again, you overfed turtle.

Which I thought was rather dumb to change. Because now, instead of being able to see what monsters you could engage and plan somewhat ahead; the monsters randomly jump out of some chrono-arsehole and engage you.

If you can time it right, and hit them with your weapon, then you will get Haste bonus effect and a pre-emptive strike. If not, the battle goes on as normal.

However, there's a Mog Clock system that ticks down during this situation, if you want to avoid combat, you must run as far away as possible from the enemies before the time runs out. If you fail to do so, you will engage in combat penalised and WITH THE RETRY OPTION LOCKED.

Bloody annoying system. Why change what was not broken?

The same can be said of the Crystarium System: instead of being multi-faceted, it is now rather linear, and you choose from a menu which role to upgrade. And at the end of each path, you choose what bonuses to get, such as an extra ATB segment or unlock a new role.

Not to say that this system does not work. It just feels like a trivial change; change for the sake of change.

Thankfully, there are a few gameplay changes that are more thoughtful and fun. For one thing, if the selected leader gets K.O-ed, you simply switch to the other character to continue the battle, unlike the last game, where the loss of the leader means GAME OVER. Even better, you can switch leaders anytime during battle to take advantage of their skills.

Also, the linearity of FF13 is gone, due in part to the storyline. Similar to Chrono Trigger, Noel and Serah can time travel between different locations and time.

Obligatory Latin naming: Historia Crux.

Each different location has their own little distractions to complete, though the side quests amount to little more than fetch quests. Still, it is a refreshing change to be given this much freedom after the last game.

However, unlike Chrono Trigger, the consequences of changes in the timeline are not governed by you, but pre-scripted storyline progression. So, for those looking for the chance to have their own unique ending will be a little disappointed.

FF13-2 brings something completely new to the table, the monster taming system.

Kitteh!!

Since you can only play as Noel and Serah, the third slot is now taken up by a monster which you have a chance of taming upon defeat. And, each monster has their own Crystarium to expand upon, using certain materials to progress.

This system is addictively fun, not unlike Pokemon, as you go around the maps trying to obtain rare monsters to add to your party. Each monster has their own pseudo-limit break, and unique skills to add to the battles. Although you may only interchange between any three chosen monsters at any point.

The monster element brings a pretty fun angle to battles, as you come up with strategies to make the best of them.

Which is why the game becomes extremely disappointing, when it comes to the enemies you can fight. Despite having a wealth of battle options, almost all the battles in can be fought with minimal effort. The effort being switching paradigms.

The final battle took me a glorious two minutes to beat.

Square Enix, if you're gonna give us so many options to toy with in battle, then give the players something challenging dammit!!

I think there was less than a dozen boss battles and most of them were damn bloody easy to defeat. The rest was just easy.

Effectively, there was no tension at all when it came to battles. No sense of excitement at all. And, no sense of achievement after beating them.

And then, there are the puzzles.

Usually, in order to repair the timeline in some of the locations, players have to solve and get rid of "Temporal Rift Anomalies". They consist of three types of puzzles, and they are also bloody boring to solve.

God ,I hated doing this one soooo much.

They serve as rather unwanted pauses in-between the action, and more often than not, they take up far too much time to solve, especially the Hands of Time puzzle variants shown above. 

In fact, instead of putting up these goddamn puzzles, I feel that the team should've spent time making the anomalies a small story in itself, and end with a boss fight instead.

Overall, I'm not too impressed with the changes in gameplay. There are good ideas, but too many unnecessary ones.


Graphics

As usual, FF13-2 looks gorgeous, especially during the important story-relevant CGI cutscenes.

Absolutely gorgeous

However, those CGI cut scenes are shown very rarely. Instead, a lot of the scenes are done in-game, while it's not horrible by any means, the graphics level is certainly nowhere close to the beautiful CGI. And, during those scenes, the range of movements for the models are obviously limited.

There are noticeable framerate drops as well during the more graphic intensive scenes.

Somehow, I get the feeling that the graphics department were somewhat rushed to push the game out. Taking into account the fact that most of the monsters are recycled from the previous game, that fact gains more footing.

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 

To summarize Final Fantasy XIII-2.

The good:

• A better battle system
• More character development for Hope
• Open world exploration returns
• Stupidly addictive monster capturing system

The bad:

• Character progression is flat, limited
• Lack of a challenge
• Bloody annoying puzzles
• Bad music choices, especially that heavy metal, rapping boss battle theme
• Gives illusion of being able to have multiple endings, but actually does not
• Making changes to aspects that were not broken in the first place

Overall, I am not impressed with Final Fantasy XIII-2. While it is by no means a half-hearted attempt, obviously alot of thought were put into it, but due to a short production time, it does not feel like it was all implemented properly.

Honestly, if you ain't a fan of the XIII universe, give this one a pass.

Katawa Shoujo Review

Now for a more serious review, cause this game (well...visual novel) deserves it in my opinion.

Now I came about this game after seeing it appear on the Escapist website's front page, specifically this article. Of course, my first reaction, probably similar to a lot of people's, was WHAT THE FUCK.

I have, erm, experience with visual novel games, so it came as a bit of a shock.

If you are not familiar with the visual novel sub-genre of games, here is a brief rundown of it: Visual novel has limited interactivity with it then almost every other game genre, usually only at certain points in the game can you choose an option that may or may not change the storyline.

It's actually more like digital choose your own adventure game. Traditionally, visual novels will contain sex-scenes, though it is not compulsory. However, if the visual novel in question is a dating-sim, then expect adult scenes aplenty in them.

Which was why 4Leaf Studio's Katawa Shoujo piqued my interest, when reaction towards it is universally positive. In fact, most players actually posted in various forums saying they were motivated to make themselves better, and some even cried. And interestingly enough, it's not made in Japan, but by a international group of programmers, artists, writers etc etc. It has a rather interesting production story.

So, to satisfy my curiosity, I went to their website, and downloaded the game. It's available for free.

So the storyline starts off with you, playing as Hisao Nakai, who has a heart attack from a slumbered heart defect known as Arrhythmia (Fucking hell, that's a mouthful). And it happened during a confession from his crush, which should have been a beautiful moment with all the pretty white snow and acoustic music.

That's harsh dude.

So, in order to cater for his heart condition, he has to move to Yamaku High School, a school that specializes in taking care of disabled students, as long as they are not mentally-disabled in some way. Thrown into a completely different environment, cut off from his friends and his crush, and carrying a life-threatening condition that could kill him if his heart so much as fluttered, Hisao certainly has had a hard time.

But, with the help of new found friends, Hisao gets his shit together, and, depending on your choices, may even find love.

Following anime stereotypes, there are a lot of cute girls in the school.

Now, before any of you assholes out there call me a bastard pervert with a disability fetish (although, granted that if you managed to read this far into the post, you're a very understanding asshole), this game does not really make an issue of the disabilities. Yes, they have emotional baggage, and it is partly YOUR job to help them get over it. But their problems are only mildly related to their disabilities.

In fact, the disabilities portrayal in Katawa Shoujo is very well handled. Basically, it comes down to this: They are people too. Look past their physical limits. They are not defined completely by their deformities. Of course, there are certain difficulties and complications because of it, but the point is, just like anyone else, they are defined by their personalities.

To be defined by their disabilities is a slap to their face, as if the rest of person does not matter.

As a thought, no one is perfect after all. We are all flawed in more ways than one, especially mentally.

And, before you ask, yes, there are sex scenes in the game, though there's an option in the menu to skip them. But they are not there for the purpose of eroticism nor fetish and those scenes are not like the primal love-making stamina olympics like in pornographic movies.

Those scenes, in my opinion, add to the story and the personality of the girl, placing the couple in their most tender, loving moments (most of the time), which gives a little more insight into the mind of the girl in question.

So,in total there are 5 girls to pursue (took these off a forum):







My personal favorites are Hanako and Lily, Emi comes in close.

Lily's route however does not have much character development on the girl's part, but more towards Hisao and Hanako's development. This relationship is probably the most normal (relatively) and has the least emotional conflict out of the five, so this route is akin to a childhood love story, but set in high school. Also helps that Lily is an exotic mix of Japanese-Scottish and is really, really beautiful. It's probably her motherly conduct that appeals to me the most.

Hanako on the other hand, well...I'm surprised that I like her. She's very reclusive and I never thought that those kind of girls would appeal to me. The way her route plays out surprised me as well, it made me think properly on how even the best of intentions and actions, can be harmful. Goodwill and intentions mean NOTHING, if you do not understand the person. It was an emotional roller coaster for me, but by the end of it, I was shedding tears alongside Hanako and Hisao (if you get the good ending).

But no matter which girl you eventually pursue, for whatever reasons, the writing in this game is extremely good. You can actually feel the people changing, for better or for worst: when you pull through to the girl, and get her to smile, it's a huge satisfaction; when it goes horribly wrong, despair and a bit of misery sets in.

With just sprites and a paragraph of words, the writers at 4Leaf Studios can tug at your heartstrings, make you laugh out loud and sometimes just smile.

Kenji Setou: The legally-blind Japanese Harry Potter feminist conspiracist nutcase.
And I LOL-ed everytime he appears.

Certain scenes, when the girls or Hisao are at their most vulnerable, as they spill out their emotions, or their past, the writing really shines.

I shit you not. I cried.

Yes. I cried.

I'm not afraid to admit it.

Oh no, don't remind me of this scene again...
FuckfuckFUCKKKK...
I need a box of tissue T__T

Especially Hanako's route for me. I cried like...3-4 times I think. And yet I soldiered on with the rest of her story.

For the most part, the story is solid, though I feel Shizune's part is rather bland: lack of choices and I did not feel satisfied with the ending, but that is just me perhaps. Some of the choices feel forced too, there are some given choices which I knew would lead to something bad, but you have no choice but to pick it anyways.

But beyond that, there really isn't much to complain about. The graphics are beautiful too, every special scene and animated cutscene is lovingly drawn and well...as they say...pictures speak a thousand words.

And yet...I can't find a single word to even describe
how beautiful and touching this simple hug is.

And the soundtrack...God...it is beautiful.

It is first class composition and their timing is perfect. The game does not have any voice acting (due to their refusal to take in funds and status as a volunteer-based project obviously), it is up to the music to do the job of setting the mood and the characters, and it does a fantastic job of it.

My particular favorite is this tune, aptly named: "Innocence", very prominent during Hanako's route.

And listening to that...ah dammit...

I'm fine.

I have something in my eye.

Now I have something in my other eye.

Now I have something in my heart...

_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________


So, to summarize Katawa Shoujo:

• Extremely good writing
• Excellent character development and story (most of the time I guess)
• Beautiful soundtrack
• Great art
• It's free!!

They said never to judge a book by its cover. And I'm glad I did not, and took the chance to try out this game.

It's too bad that 4Leaf Studios have no plans to make any other visual novels or games after this one, and will probably disband. I feel like they have the potential to make more heartwarming stories.

The bottom-line is: it's about humanity.

It will make you cry.

It will make you think.

It will make you smile.

We need more of these kind of stories that reflect on the subject of humanity.

What are you waiting for? It's available for free anyways. >>Download<<

I think this short poster by the developers said it best. Go be a better person.