Tyler F.M. Edwards's Blog, page 59

Retro Review: Once Upon a Time, Season Three: Episodes 18-22

I now reach the end of Once Upon a Time’s third season, and it goes out not with a bang, but a whimper, leaving me to wonder if this show is still worth my time.

“Bleeding Through”:

It’s seance time!

Despite the best efforts of Regina and Robin Hood, Zelena has stolen Regina’s heart, and not in the fun way.* Zelena is now on the brink of victory, but if the people of Storybrooke are to defeat her, they need more information on her plans, and her past.

*(That’s Emma’s job. :P)

To this end, Belle delves into Rumpel’s collection of lore to determine what sort of spell Zelena hopes to cast, and Regina attempts to summon the spirit of Cora to learn the truth of Zelena’s origins. The tale therein shows Cora as close to sympathetic as she’s ever been.

Surprisingly, this also offers the opportunity for Snow and Regina to bond — bet that’s something you never thought you’d see.

I have to admit I’m rather embarrassed it took me this long to realize the significance of Zelena stealing courage, a heart, etcetera.

Thus far this whole Wicked Witch arc has been decidedly underwhelming, but “Bleeding Through” is pretty good, perhaps due to a strong focus on Regina. It was very strange but also very enjoyable to see her and Snow bonding so much, and I really liked Snow’s assessment of Regina as a person at the end.

My complaints with this episode are several but mostly minor. It was entirely too easy for Zelena to track down Regina’s heart, which rather invalidated the ending of last episode. There’s still no explanation of how or why Zelena wound up in Oz — this seems to have taken place before Cora started learning magic.

I also feel the characters judged Ava’s actions with excessive harshness. I mean, I’m not saying what she did wasn’t a little catty, but Cora was lying, and she was clearly only interested in Leopold as a path to wealth and power.

Overall rating: 7.8/10

“A Curious Thing”:

Time is running out to stop Zelena (no pun intended). The people of Storybrooke come to believe they may already know how to defeat her, but lost the memory along with the rest of the year they spent in the Enchanted Forest. To uncover the truth, they’ll need to break the curse (again), but to do that, they need Henry, so first he must recover his own memories.

But Zelena isn’t about to let that happen without a fight, and between that Hook continuing to be really quite awful, Emma and company are going to have a rough ride.

Thankfully, we as television viewers don’t need Henry, so we get to learn the truth via the traditional flashbacks.

This was a pretty enjoyable episode. The pacing is quick but not rushed, there’s a good emotional weight without being too sappy, and it moves the story along quite well. The fact that Zelena didn’t cast the curse is quite an unexpected twist, but it makes perfect sense, and I quite liked Snow’s plan to circumvent the price of the curse. Very clever.

And Hook is having a bad time.

Quite good all around.

Overall rating: 7.9/10

“Kansas”:

And now we’re back to an old problem: Emma and Charming are morons.

Sorry, but there’s just no other word for it at this point. Charming insists that Emma bring Hook when she goes to confront Zelena, even knowing Hook can destroy all of Emma’s power. That’s idiotic.

Then Emma gives Hook mouth to mouth to save him, knowing it will destroy her magic. That’s even dumber. Even if Hook wasn’t a worthless sleazeball, it still wouldn’t be worth sacrificing the whole town to save him, which is essentially what Emma chose to do. Of course, someone stepped in and cleaned up her mess, but she had no way of knowing that was going to happen.

And that brings us to the saving grace of Storybrooke, and this episode: Regina.

With Emma failing miserably in her role as saviour, it’s up to the ex-villain to save the town, and it’s a fantastic culmination of Regina’s redemption arc to date. And once again, Lana Parilla’s gravitas has saved what would otherwise be a truly dreadful episode.

There’s also yet another series of flashbacks, this time dealing with Zelena’s time in Oz and her fateful encounter with a girl named Dorothy, which is… fine, I guess. There’s nothing wrong with it, but I don’t see that it adds much.

Overall rating: 7.1/10

“Snow Drifts”:

All seems well in Storybrooke. But Emma is not content. For reasons that are not entirely clear, she’s planning to abandon Storybrooke and her family and take Henry back to New York, despite the fact that no one wants this, least of all Henry.

Hook is sent to calm her down — because nothing says “voice of reason” like murderous, alcoholic, self-centered pirate — but they spot Zelena’s reactivated time portal, and because Emma has all the wisdom and good sense of a crack-addled chicken, she rushes in to investigate instead of, you know, seeking the help of someone who could actually do something about it.

Inevitably, she and Hook wind up stuck in the past, and promptly destroy the future. It is then their task, with the aid of Rumpelstiltskin, to fix things such that Snow and Charming once again fall in love and everything proceeds as it should.

In case the heaping portion of snark hasn’t given it away yet, I did not particularly enjoy this episode. Once Upon a Time’s two worst characters trying to save the world from their own incompetence just doesn’t make for a particularly compelling plot.

I don’t know what else to say about it, honestly.

Overall rating: 5.9/10

“There’s No Place Like Home” (season finale):

The final episode of Once Upon a Time’s third season is pretty much a continuation of the last one. Which is not a good thing.

Again, we see two incredibly uninteresting and unlikable characters trying to save the world from themselves… and having no real trouble with it, either. They almost effortlessly manage to repair the damage to the timeline. There’s no drama.

Worse still, the episode concludes with Emma finally falling for Hook, a plot twist I find so utterly unpleasant it’s making me give serious thought to giving up on the series altogether. The only thing making Hook’s presence tolerable was Emma’s continued rejection of him.

I cannot withstand a world where Emma/Hook is a thing. I just can’t.

That said, there a few saving graces this time. Not enough to make it a good episode, but enough to make it not a total waste of time.

I did very much like Emma’s confrontation with past-Rumpel near the end. It was a rare case of Emma not sucking. Snow and Charming naming their son after Baelfire was also a very touching moment.

The woman Emma rescued being Maid Marian is also a very good twist. I just hope it doesn’t once again reset Regina’s redemption arc.

Overall rating: 6.4/10

* * *

Months have passed since I originally wrote this post (yeah, dat backlog), and although further seasons of Once Upon a Time have been added to Netflix, I have not watched them. I won’t say it’ll never happen, but I don’t have any particular desire to at the moment.

This series has always been very hit and miss, but its flaws are becoming increasingly difficult to stomach. Emma and Hook are genuinely ruining the show for me. Emma is not an interesting character, and the actress behind her is simply wooden and lifeless. Hook was introduced as an utterly despicable character, and the subsequent ham-fisted and half-assed attempts to make him sympathetic have only made me resent him more.

Furthermore, the Peter Pan arc was so excellent that I just know the series will never be that good again, and part of me thinks it would be better to quit while I’m ahead, so to speak.

I’m still a big Robert Carlyle fan, but Rumpel’s character seems destined to be an unending source of disappointment. It seems unlikely he’ll ever stop relapsing to his evil self, and at this point, I’m not sure he even deserves redemption. It’s not worth getting invested in the character.

That leaves Regina as the one major redeeming feature of the series, but I’m just not sure she’s enough on her own.

Filed under: Retro Reviews Tagged: fantasy, Once Upon a Time, review, TV

BlizzCon 2015: Overwatch’s Story, Diablo’s Patch, WoW News, and More

The second day of BlizzCon 2015 is coming to a close, and while the big reveals were reserved for yesterday, there’s still more than a few interesting tidbits to discuss.

Overwatch story panel: Comics, cartoons, and diversity

The thing I was most interested in on day two of BlizzCon was the “World of Overwatch” panel that promised more information on storytelling in the world of Overwatch. We’re in this odd limbo where Blizzard has created this incredibly rich and colourful world for this game, but yet have no intention of actually telling any story within the game itself.

Unfortunately, that hasn’t changed, but the panel does offer some hope for us story fans.

So far, the plans for expanding Overwatch’s story seem twofold: a series of comics, including a graphic novel and shorter pieces, and some animated shorts to flesh out the backstory of various characters.

It seems like the animated shorts will be around the same quality as the announcement cinematic, which is pretty cool. Also, baby Winston appears to be ridiculously adorable. Knowing what we know about Winston already, that particular short is bound to be a tear-jerker.

The comics… Well, I’ll probably read them. Comic books and graphic novels aren’t my favourite thing in the world, but considering how much inspiration Overwatch takes from super heroes, it makes sense.

Both these seem like good things to have. The animated shorts, in particular, will undoubtedly be awesome, given the quality of Blizzard’s usual cinematics and things like the Burdens of Shaohao.

But none of this is a “meal” from a story perspective. I want something I can really sink my teeth into. I really do not understand Blizzard’s reticence to add a story mode, or campaign, or something.

Interestingly, Activision-Blizzard has recently launched a film and television division. Right now all the planned adaptations are of non-Blizzard games, but perhaps that oft-requested Overwatch Saturday morning cartoon isn’t outside the realm of possibility.

The other interesting tidbit from the panel concerned Blizzard’s ongoing push for inclusiveness with Overwatch. Someone asked if any of the characters are gay, and the answer was an unequivocal, “Yes.” Metzen even added that there is more than one gay character on the line-up.

We don’t know who yet; Blizzard wants to reveal that organically as part of the story. I think this is wise, as it helps prevent stereotyping anyone as “the gay character.”

Of course, this inevitably leads to rampant speculation.

It has been noted that Tracer and Widowmaker, as well as Soldier: 76 and Reaper, have special rivalries with one another, and this has of course led to lots of theories about one or both pairings being some sort of “jilted lover” scenario. Plus Tracer/Widowmaker was already a thing pretty much from the moment the game was announced. Make sure you have safe search on if you Google that.

I find both scenarios a tad predictable myself. Plus Tracer/Widowmaker seems more like the sort of thing rooted in “fantasies” than anything. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, but I’m not sure it’s a good basis for canon storylines.

It’s also worth noting that it took less than 24 hours for Mei/D.Va to be a thing. Though that one I really don’t get. They don’t seem to have any common ground or chemistry at all, aside from both being super kawaii. Tracer/D.Va… that I could see.

Personally, my choices for gay characters would be Tracer, because it would be daring to pick the game’s most iconic character, or any of the real macho manly men — like McCree, Reinhardt, or Soldier: 76 — because it would be deliciously non-stereotypical.

I just really hope it’s not Zarya. Way too stereotypical.

Diablo: Patch 2.4

Depending on your perspective, BlizzCon 2015 is really good or really bad for Diablo fans.

Really good because another big, ambitious patch is coming with some significant content. They’re adding not one, not two, but three new areas to the world. The Eternal Woods are an offshoot of the Ruins of Sescheron added last patch, the Royal Quarters are an expansion of Leoric’s Manor in act one, and there’s a large new zone in act five called Greyhollow Island.

Although I’m not generally a fan of D3’s graphics (to put it mildly), the Ruins of Sescheron are incredibly beautiful, and I’m very happy to see more from that tileset. Greyhollow Island also looks like something of a feast for the eyes, though I wouldn’t exactly call it pretty.

The major new feature of patch 2.4 is set dungeons. These are non-randomized class-specific dungeons that are only unlocked when you complete a six-piece class set, and feature challenges tailored to that set’s power.

That’s… odd.

I have no idea what the numbers are on the people with full class sets, but I can’t imagine it’s terribly high. I’ve played a lot of Diablo III, and I still only have four pieces of Tal Rasha’s.

So it’s a cool idea, but it seems spectacularly niche.

There’s also a bevy of quality of life improvements and the usual new items and revamped sets.

It seems like a great patch… but it’s still just a patch, and that’s why it’s also bad news.

I love that Blizzard is adding so much free content basically out of the kindness of their hearts, but I want an expansion. I want a continuation of the main storyline. I want new classes. Big patches are good, but they’re not enough.

WoW: New transmog system, class changes, and more

Day two of BlizzCon also saw a great deal of new information about Legion and its systems.

The biggest news to me is the new transmogrification system. You will no longer need to keep old items; you can simply unlock an appearance and keep it forever, like in Diablo III.

When you log into Legion, the appearances of every item in your inventory, your bank, and your void storage, and every single reward from every quest you have ever done will be unlocked.

Nice.

Transmog is also becoming more of a wardrobe system. You will be able to store multiple looks and swap between them easily, perhaps even tying them to specific specializations. A look will also memorize hidden items, such as helms, cloaks, and shoulders.

Finally, transmog will now also include tabards, shirts, and weapon enchants.

This is all just lovely. As a fan of cosmetic customization, I can only offer my whole-hearted approval. This certainly helps solve my issue of “too many cool outfits and not enough gear sets to use them on.”

Another thing that excited me was the preview of artifact weapons. I really love how epic and story-driven the quests to acquire them seem to be, though this does once again make me worry my alt addiction may surge wildly out of control. I also like how artifacts will be something you can upgrade through virtually any kind of content, which should make for a less restrictive endgame.

On the downside, it seems like artifacts won’t be around forever. Blizzard really needs to stop creating expansion-only features; it’s a terrible idea on so many levels.

A big shocker, though not in a bad way, is that dual spec is going away. Spec is now something you change as easily as swapping a stance, and any character can easily access all specializations for their class. Looks like I’m finally giving fistweaving a try! This also means there are more artifact quests I can do.

The many major class overhauls were also touched on, though there are still more questions than answers. The death knight rune system is being greatly simplified — I wonder if I’ll finally be able to enjoy that class now? I always loved DKs in terms of lore and aesthetics, but could never quite get into the gameplay.

Subtlety rogues are also getting an interesting-sounding revamp. Shadow dance is now a passive that triggers throughout combat, putting you into stealth and opening up new shadow-themed abilities. That seems really cool, but I do wonder how it’ll work when soloing. Currently when you vanish, mobs evade and regain all health. It’d be really damn annoying to have no control over that.

It’s also confirmed that demonology is losing metamorphosis and becoming a more pet-focused spec. This reads to me as, “Demonology has been removed.” This is profoundly disappointing — I have no intention of playing fel beast mastery.

In other bad news, flying is confirmed to not be in at launch for Legion. Which also means that despite my growing excitement for Legion, I probably won’t be there at launch, either. We’ll see how I feel.

The final stand-out for me was mention of when Turalyon and Alleria appear. One gets the impression it’ll in post-launch content, and they said, “The way you view WoW will change.” The optimist in me says this will mean the end of the Alliance/Horde conflict and the beginning of the Army of the Light. The cynic in me says this will be some random nonsensical twist for the lore that doesn’t change much for the game. The realist in my says it won’t be either of those things and is being overhyped.

There’s a lot of other news — including profession revamps and class hall info, as well some info on Heroes of the Storm — but that’s what stood out to me, and I don’t want to make this post too bloated.

* * *

On the whole, I’m pretty happy with this BlizzCon. It may not have had a lot of surprises or huge reveals, and I am disappointed by the lack of a Diablo expansion, but there’s a lot of good stuff to be found.

The Warcraft trailer was outstanding, and flight and demonology issues aside, I really like what I’m hearing from Legion. Despite myself, I find my excitement for the expansion growing.

I’m also quite glad that StarCraft seems to have a bright future, and while I regret the lack of an expansion for Diablo, at least it hasn’t been forgotten. Heroes is chugging along nicely.

Overwatch I feel torn on. Everything I learn makes me more in love with the Overwatch world and its characters — it’s hitting my IDIC feels something fierce — but the more I think about it, the less appealing Overwatch the game seems. I really don’t get this massive disconnect between the world-building and character development and the game design.

How about you? What are your thoughts on this year’s BlizzCon and its news?

Filed under: Games Tagged: Diablo, fantasy, Overwatch, sci-fi, video games, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

BlizzCon 2015: Warcraft Trailer, StarCraft DLC, and Other News

BlizzCon is upon us once again, bringing a tidal wave of news and reveals for Blizzard’s many franchises. I don’t wish to waste any time, so let’s get to it!

The Warcraft trailer:

The biggest reveal coming out of this BlizzCon was the first full-length trailer for the upcoming Warcraft film.

It’s everything I ever dreamed of.

Seriously, this trailer fills me with such overwhelming childish glee you’re lucky I can still spell, let alone type anything coherent about it. I love, love, love it.

I can’t even words. It’s wonderful.

I will say that I love how it’s clearly telling the stories of both the humans and Orcs and giving an even shake to both. This doesn’t look to be a story with black and white morality at all, and that is exactly as it should be.

If I may allow myself one small complaint, it appears that Draka will be pulling a “Moses among the reeds” with Thrall, and while I have long argued that Thrall is Orcish Moses, that’s a little too on the nose for my taste.

Still, on the whole, this trailer is mind-blowing.

StarCraft mission packs coming soon:

The one real surprise from this BlizzCon so far is the announcement that StarCraft 2’s story content will not end with Legacy of the Void’s campaign. Starting next year, Blizzard will be releasing a series of DLC mission packs to flesh out the story of the StarCraft universe. The first one, Nova: Covert Ops, already has a cinematic teaser.

More story, and Nova’s involved? I’m sold.

Again, I have little to say beyond the fact that I’m happy.

I just hope the packs aren’t too expensive. I mean, Blizzard owns my soul, so I’ll pretty much pay whatever they ask, but… Three missions with SC2’s pacing will probably take at most ninety minutes to finish, so any more than $10 would be a stretch.

There’s also word of some other new additions coming after Legacy of the Void, including new commanders for the co-op missions, the long-awaited Abathur announcer pack, and the option for players to sell the content they’ve made through the Arcade.

Quite impressed by how much Blizzard plans for a “finished” game.

World of Warcraft: Legion cinematic and details

As if the movie trailer wasn’t enough badassery, they also showed the opening cinematic for Legion.

As regular readers know, I’m feeling really bitter about WoW right now. My love/hate relationship has little love left in it after WoD.

But this cinematic blew me away. This is probably the best cinematic for WoW yet, and that’s saying something. It’s epic, it’s emotional, it’s intense. It’s everything a cinematic should be.

One does get the impression that Blizzard may be planning to kill off Varian, which has been speculated for a while. My initial reaction to the idea was nerd rage, as Blizzard has a terrible habit of killing off their most interesting characters.

However, the more I think about it, the more I think it might be okay. Varian has had an amazing character arc over the years, and if this is to be his end, then it’s a worthy one.

In other news, Blizzard’s website has been updated with previews of the artifact weapons for all classes. The biggest piece of news here is that combat rogues no longer exist; the specialization is now called “outlaw.”

I am curious what other changes are due for the spec. Hopefully it can recapture some of its former glory. I do like that its artifact weapons are swords, though they also seem to be one of the few artifacts without a particularly lore-rich backstory. And I’ll try not to be too bitter that rogues didn’t get a ranged spec.

Speaking of artifacts, I love all the backstories Blizzard has come up with for them. Some pretty interesting lore in some of those, especially about the Titans’ servants. I feel a grave risk that my alt addiction may flair out of control as I try to experience as many artifact quests as possible.

Something interesting that’s just being revealed as I write this is that there is no set leveling path through the new zones. All zones scale to your level (somehow), with the only exception that the city of Suramar is always max-level only. Dungeons will also be scaled this way. Interesting idea. Not a massive change, but could make things a bit more interesting for alts.

Speaking of new zones, they all look incredibly beautiful, and all the lore seems to be about Elves, Vrykul, and Tauren, which is music to my ears.

They seem to be taking a lot of cues from Diablo for the endgame this time. There’s a new mission system that seems like a combination of traditional daily quests, D3’s adventure mode, and TSW’s new challenge system. Seems like a good idea — the emphasis seems to be on choice, which is desperately needed. We’ll see how it shakes out.

Challenge dungeons are also being converted to something like D3’s Nephalem Rifts. Failing to beat the timer is not, well, a failure — instead beating the timer simply allows you to upgrade a keystone, unlocking progressively more challenging (and rewarding) version of the dungeon, infinitely.

More emphasis on dungeons is welcome, and this sounds great for those with regular groups to run with, but I’m not sure how much it means for the rest of unwashed masses.

I am still a bit disappointed we’ve not gotten any really huge announcements, like a free to play transition or factions merging, but despite myself, I find my cautious optimism for Legion slowly becoming less cautious and more optimism.

The bad news is that Legion is not due until “summer,” which manages to be quite disappointing but not even remotely surprising. Welcome to a year of Hellfire Citadel.

Heroes of the Storm: The arena and more

The big news for Heroes is a new game mode, the arena. This seems to be an attempt to “bottle” the epic team fights that spring up around map objectives. Short, semi-randomized contests over objectives similar to those seen on the standard maps. Best two out of three wins.

Some variety is good, I suppose. Personally I think I’ll prefer the more traditional game format, but I’m sure arena will have many fans.

A new map was also revealed, Towers of Doom. This ghastly map is part of the Raven Court universe, and promises some very unique mechanics. Cores cannot be attacked directly, only destroyed by map objectives, and there was talk of being able to take over enemy towns rather than simply destroying them, though what this means in practice is unclear.

I like this. The map looks beautiful, and it sounds like a refreshing change of pace from all the “summon a golem” maps we’ve seen lately.

There were also several new heroes announced: Genn Greymane, Cho’gall, and Lunara.

Cho’gall is by far the most mechanically unique. Taking a page from a former WoW April Fools joke, Cho’gall will actually require two players to control, one for each head.

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, that’s brilliantly original, and I can only stand in awe of Blizzard’s sheer gall (no pun intended). On the other hand, Cho’gall is a character I love, and this pretty much guarantees I will never, ever play him. So that makes me sad.

Cho’gall’s release will also be unique. For the first few months, only BlizzCon attendees and virtual ticket buyers will have access to him, but players who don’t have him can unlock him by playing with those who do. He is intended to spread across the playerbase like a virus.

It’s worth noting Cho’gall will eventually go up for sale normally, but not for several months.

The other two heroes, Genn and a dryad named Lunara, are not at all what I was expecting to see, but both look very, very cool. Genn appears to be able to fight as both a melee and ranged character by swapping between his Worgen and human forms, and while we don’t know much about Lunara yet, I love her aesthetics. I like that they’re going for the wilder, more dangerous version of the dryads. I mean, I love Mylune, but…

We also have confirmation that Overwatch’s Tracer will be coming to the Nexus in the future. Which brings me to…

Overwatch: Pre-sales and new heroes

Overwatch’s announcements began with an absolutely awesome trailer detailing not only all the heroes revealed over the past year, but also three new additions: Mei-ling Zhou, Hana “D.Va” Song, and Genji. All of these were teased beforehand, but now we have the details.

In a bizarre crossover, D.Va is a pro StarCraft player who now fights for her country aboard a combat mech. She can switch between mech and human forms, making for what appears to be some truly interesting gameplay.

She also shouts “Nerf this” when using her ultimate, which is awesome. I will be very disappointed if she doesn’t say “GG” after a kill.

Mei looks the most appealing to me. She’s a climate scientist who uses a freeze ray to trap enemies and erect ice barriers. After D.Va was announced, I figured Overwatch had hit max cuteness, but Mei is a contender for history’s most huggable video game character (sorry, Tali). She’s adorable.

Genji is a cybernetic ninja with a very interesting backstory that connects to Hanzo, Mercy, and Zenyatta. I am, however, a little disappointed that he is still primarily a ranged fighter and uses his sword only sparingly.

I am continually impressed by the incredibly colourful and inventive character design for Overwatch, and for how intensely likable Blizzard can make these characters with just a few paragraphs of backstory.

This also shows Overwatch’s commitment to diversity continuing. All three new characters are Asian, and two are female. The IDIC feels continue.

The big surprise was that Overwatch will not, in fact, be free to play, but will require a box purchase (pre-orders are open now).

I am less than thrilled with this. While there is much about Overwatch that appeals to me, I’m not big on shooters and even less fond of competitive play, so I’m definitely not spending money on it unless I have a chance to try it first. Unless I’m lucky enough to get a beta invite, I might not be able to play Overwatch for a very long time.

I was also disappointed to hear no news of a story mode, an option to not have to switch heroes in-match, or third person perspective.

I don’t get it. Blizzard created this amazingly deep new setting with brilliantly original characters, and they don’t want to use it for anything but an arena where people shoot each other. They put so much effort into these excellent character designs — including optional skins — but you can’t even look at your own character. Why anyone would spend money on a skin you can’t even see yourself is beyond me.

It seems terribly wasteful. There’s so much potential in Overwatch, and the trailers always get me so pumped, but the reality of the game just seems very underwhelming right now. I don’t understand Blizzard’s reasoning.

* * *

There’s more news — like a new zone for Diablo III — but this post is already running long, and more announcements are bound to come, so I’ll save it for tomorrow’s post.

In the meantime, comment and let me know your thoughts on this year’s BlizzCon!

Filed under: Games Tagged: fantasy, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, sci-fi, Starcraft, video games, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

Review: Sword Coast Legends

I don’t normally get caught up in hype. I may get excited when it comes to upcoming games, but it’s usually based on my own opinion of whether or not it looks interesting, not communal buzz or marketing.

I don’t often get caught up in hype, but when I do, I usually regret it, and that’s true of Sword Coast Legends.

That’s not to say it’s a bad game. But I could probably have found a better use for the money I spent on it.

The game:

For those unaware,  Sword Coast Legends is meant as a throwback to classic CRPGs, taking place in Dungeons and Dragons’ omnipresent Forgotten Realms setting. A lot of its hype in the gaming community came from its dungeon master mode and player content creation tools, but this review will mainly focus on its story mode and core mechanics, for reasons I will get to in a bit.

Sword Coast Legends is pretty much what you’d expect from an old school-inspired RPG… which mostly means it has really crummy combat. It’s a lot like the combat of the first two Dragon Age games, and long-time readers know that’s not a compliment coming from me. Mostly it’s a lot of sitting around and watching your party auto-attack while you wait on cooldowns to refresh.

This can be mitigated by acquiring cooldown reduction gear, but that’s a double-edged sword for the game. The end result is that you never want anything other than cooldown reduction gear — it vastly outstrips any other stat.

To be fair, though, I didn’t hate the combat in Sword Coast Legends as much as I did in, say, Dragon Age: Origins. If only because the top-down camera creates a different expectation of pacing for me than over the shoulder does. Playing a ranger also helped — they’re a ridiculously versatile class that always has something to do.

Something I found refreshing compared to most other RPGs these days is that classes in Sword Coast legends are quite versatile and can be built a lot of different ways. This also opens up a little more freedom for party composition. For example, I didn’t need a rogue in my party, because I trained my ranger to pick locks and disarm traps.

I really loved the ranger class in this game.

On the downside, unlike pretty much every RPG I’ve played in the last… ten years, at least, party members will not gain XP or otherwise match your level unless you’re actively bringing them adventuring with you. Since leveling is very slow in this game, that means you pretty much have to pick a single party composition and stick with it the whole through.

Which is even more problematic because there are points in the story where you can lose companions (yes, plural) permanently, often with no warning and no way to prevent it.

I also did not care for the fact that a full play through of the story mode, completing every side quest and fully exploring every map, will still leave a few levels short of the cap.

One thing I did really like, though, is that Sword Coast Legends often offers multiple ways to solve problems beyond simply killing things. Characters with a high strength score can attempt to intimidate enemies, or force certain locks, while a high charisma will allow you to persuade NPCs to a variety of ends. This is certainly a refreshing change of pace, and it makes the game feel a lot more detailed than the average RPG.

I also liked that, unlike pretty much every other game I’ve ever played with systems like this, upgrading your non-combat skills doesn’t seem to hamper your fighting prowess too much.

The story:

The storyline of Sword Coast Legends would be best be described as a mixed bag.

Its greatest strength is its characters. Nearly all of the party members are fleshed out, interesting, and likable — if often bizarre and quirky. They’re not quite Bioware-quality, but I definitely got attached to my little crew of oddballs after a while.

The voice acting is also pretty good. Not the best I’ve heard, but good enough to sell the characters.

You have a few choices to make over the course of the story, but most of them don’t have a lot of impact. It’s better than nothing, though.

The main storyline, though, is at best adequate. It’s a pretty cliche “bad monsters want to destroy the world, you are the chosen one” affair. It’s mostly pretty predictable, and there just isn’t much that’s memorable about it.

There were also several storytelling decisions made near the end that I did not like at all. One twist, in particular, in addition to being very frustrating to me as a player, could be considered borderline offensive. I’m sure the writers didn’t mean any harm, but they really should have thought things through, given the context of real world history and culture.

So, on the whole, it makes for a somewhat underwhelming experience from a story perspective.

It also didn’t help that the last boss fight bugged out for me badly, causing all my companions’ AI to stop functioning. That did not make for a good time.

The toolset:

As of this writing, I haven’t done anything in Sword Coast Legends other than the story mode. I never had much interest in playing as a dungeon master, and my lukewarm feelings on the game mechanics have put a damper on any desire I might have had to play content made by other players — though it could still happen at some point.

I was fairly interested in the campaign creation tools, but I quickly discovered that they are currently severely limited in what they can do. I recall games from the nineties having more powerful content creation tools.

To the developers’ credit, they have released a fairly detailed timeline of planned improvements, and it sounds like the content creation toolset will soon be much more robust, but as of right now, there’s not much to it. If I do any campaign-building, it will be after those changes are made.

* * *

Overall rating: 6.7/10 Not a bad game, but not a particularly memorable one, either.

Filed under: Games, Reviews Tagged: fantasy, review, Sword Coast Legends

Review: World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor

As has become my tradition, I will now offer my collected thoughts on the most recent World of Warcraft expansion as it winds to an end.

Do I even need to say this will be a giant rant?

Out of left field:

I think it’s safe to say that the announcement of alternate universe Draenor as the setting for an expansion pack was a surprise to everyone, and probably not a pleasant surprise for most.

Warlords of Draenor has been, from beginning to end, a bizarre and borderline nonsensical tangent that has contributed little of value to the ongoing story of the Warcraft universe.

I’ve chosen to simply write it off as akin to, say, the Simpsons Halloween episodes — a what if scenario with no bearing on the “real” story. Of course, this also makes the expansion feel very pointless and severely hampered my motivation to keep playing… but it’s the only way to maintain my sanity as a lore fan.

It’s not even an interesting what if scenario, either. The Iron Horde are not at all compelling as villains. They have no depth or personality, and they are soundly defeated at every turn, so they never feel like a threat.

I’ve long railed against the idea that Blizzard favours the Horde, but I will grant WoD is a clear example of the Alliance getting the short end of the stick. It’s basically an Orc expansion, and what little Alliance storyline does exist is dominated by the Draenei, and Yrel.

It’s no secret I hold a very low opinion of the Draenei, but at first, WoD seemed to be turning that around. They were actually being treated as real people with flaws and internal conflicts, and I quite enjoyed the Rangaari, Maraad, and Maladaar. But then Yrel happened.

Yrel is a strong contender for worst character in the Warcraft universe, and the embodiment of everything wrong with the Draenei. She’s a shiny perfect hero archetype with no depth or personality whatsoever, and the game is constantly hailing her as a born hero and saviour despite the fact she never actually does anything.

The one and only time we see Yrel actually take command, she leads her people into a blindingly obvious trap. This might have been a good opportunity to add some nuance to her character, but neither the game nor Yrel itself acknowledges her failure, and the game just keeps on treating her as the most perfectest saviour of all Draenor.

And the entire story revolves around her. Other, far more interesting characters are pushed to the side or killed off outright just to make room for the rise of this Maryest of Sues.

That said, it’s not a great expansion to be a Horde lore fan, either. It mostly amounts to a giant character assassination of many iconic Horde characters, and the Orc race as a whole, and any non-Orc Horde races have been completely forgotten.

So Alliance got the worst of it, but this was not a good expansion for either faction’s story.

There are only a few highlights in this otherwise dull expansion.

One is Frostfire Ridge, which had an absolutely fantastic storyline. I loved how they fleshed out the Frostwolf culture, Durotan was excellent throughout, and while pretty much everyone is a bit burnt out on Orcs by now, this story was a great reminder of how awesome Orcs can be at their best.

I also had a lot of fun uncovering the history and mythology of the Arrakoa in Spires of Arak, and Reshad is a character I have a lot of love for. The story was over too quickly and inconclusively, though.

Flying:

I’ll be blunt: Trying to remove flight was one of the stupidest things Blizzard has ever done.

I reject all of the arguments made against flying; I find them utterly spurious in the context of the game’s reality. I do not believe flight has any negative impact on WoW. However, even if I did accept the criticisms of flight to be accurate, trying to remove it would still be a terrible idea.

Flight has been a core feature of World of Warcraft for a large majority of its lifespan. Flying mounts have long served as the ultimate prestige reward in the game, requiring major grinds or even real money purchases in some cases. There was no way that trying to take away flying was not going to make everyone lose their minds, and rightfully so.

One must also make mention of how badly Blizzard mishandled their communications on the issue. We as fans spent months getting conflicting answers and waffling ambiguity, and it ended up coming across as severe incompetence at best and deliberate dishonesty at worst. It’s amazing a company as big and successful as Blizzard could mishandle its PR so badly.

Of course, Blizzard finally backed down and put flying back in, but of course, it had to come with another poison pill.

I do not agree with the idea that the Pathfinder achievement is a “good compromise.” We had a good compromise for years: you can’t fly while leveling, but it unlocks at max level. That was a good system that satisfies both sides of the argument.

The Pathfinder achievement is yet more grind for grind’s sake, and it comes across as spitefulness on behalf of the developers over the players not sharing their grand vision.

And now the mess is starting all over again, as we can’t get a clear answer on how or when flight will be available in Legion.

I, for one, will not buy the new expansion until flight is in the game.

Garrisons:

Garrisons have gotten a lot of hate, not entirely undeserved, but personally I enjoyed them. I enjoy having a little of the game world to call my own, and collecting and upgrading followers was an enjoyable — if somewhat grindy — minigame.

I think garrisons do deserve a lot of credit for solving the problem that plagues most player housing systems: a lack of tangible gameplay. I’ve never much cared about player housing because there’s nothing to do there once you’ve built a home to your liking. With crafting integration and follower missions, garrisons offered a reason to keep coming back even after construction was complete.

However, garrisons do suffer from two crippling problems.

One is that they lack almost all personalization. Even the ability to choose the location of your garrison was scrapped pre-launch, and now there’s almost nothing you can do to make a garrison feel yours. So while garrisons lack the fatal flaw of most player housing systems, they also lack the main virtue.

The other is that garrisons are completely unavoidable. It’s all but impossible to reach level cap without building one’s garrison as you go. In theory, you could mostly ignore it at level cap, but no one in their right mind would do so, as garrisons are one of the must ludicrously rewarding activities in the game’s history. You can make thousands, perhaps tens of thousands, of gold per week just putting the bare minimum of effort into follower missions, and that’s just scratching the surface of what garrisons offer.

This is the same mistake Blizzard just keeps making over and over again: forcing everyone into a narrow band of content whether they like it or not. In Cataclysm, it was raids. In Pandaria, it was daily quests. In Draenor, it’s garrisons. I wonder what narrow niche of gameplay Legion will make us all hate?

Garrisons should have been designed as a deep but optional side activity, like pet battles. As that, they would have worked brilliantly.

One other major disappointment is that Blizzard is planning to abandon the garrison feature after WoD. It seems tragic to me that a feature with so much potential is simply being thrown in the trash can, rather than iterated on and improved. Garrisons aren’t an amazing feature now, but they easily could be if Blizzard was willing to put in the effort.

Oh, and let’s not even talk about how excruciatingly unfun the shipyard is.

An empty shell:

Even if all the other issues hadn’t been a factor, WoD would still be an underwhelming expansion based purely on how small and unambitious it was.

There simply wasn’t much to do. Scenarios were inexplicable abandoned, as were most daily quests. This left apexis grinding as the only significant content outside of raids and dungeons, and that was simply soul-crushing. I actually like the idea of filling a progress bar through a variety of activities, but they were tuned so badly. One percent completion per mob kill makes me die a little inside. And what do you get in the end? Merely a pittance of apexis crystals.

WoD also repeated one of the worst mistakes of Pandaria by not adding any new five man dungeons after launch. Timewalking and mythic dungeons are both welcome features, but they’re no substitute for new dungeons.

In fact, WoD added hardly anything at all after launch. We got only one content patch worthy of the name, and Tanaan had been intended as a launch zone before being delayed, so really the only new content we got all expansion was a single raid and the garrison shipyard.

But by far the worst mistake of WoD’s endgame was the removal of valor and justice points.

I have no interest in RNG gearing. I am not motivated by the slim chance of getting a drop that may or may not be useful. If I wanted to gamble, I’d go to a casino. Grinding out points has been my endgame since I started playing. Without it, my motivation to keep playing after leveling is pretty much nonexistent.

This is another one of those cases where Blizzard is telling us what we’re supposed to find fun. They said that going to a vendor to buy gear wasn’t exciting. I guess I imagined all those years of looking forward to rushing off to the vendors to buy a shiny new upgrade. Certainly that was more exciting than killing the same boss for months only to have your shoulders still not drop.

Now Blizzard is planning a patch to re-implement valor, if only for item upgrades. It would be very tempting — and probably accurate — to call this too little too late, but at least it’s a step in the right direction. I can only hope valor will be a launch feature for Legion, as a way to buy gear and not just upgrade it.

We could also talk about how the Raid Finder’s rewards were gutted as a further attempt to remind those outside of raiding guilds that we are second class citizens in Blizzard’s eyes, or how important story moments were locked behind mythic-only phases, or how the legendary quest repeated the endless grinding of Pandaria’s without its excellent storytelling and single-player challenges, or how the nerfs to casting while moving have sucked much of the fun out of ranged classes, but this post is already dragging on too long.

WoW’s development has always been a case of two steps forward and one step back. Every expansion has made big mistakes. But Warlords of Draenor is the first expansion to do more harm than good. For the first time, I wish I could turn back the clock to an earlier period of the game.

WoD didn’t expand or improve the game. It contracted it and made it less fun, in ways I’m not sure it will ever recover from. Not because the problems are unfixable, but because I don’t think Blizzard is even interested in trying.

Overall rating: 3.1/10

Filed under: Games, Reviews Tagged: epic nerd rant, fantasy, review, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

How Guild Wars 2 Lost Me, Perhaps Forever

I don’t like doing purely negative posts, as a rule. I tend to be a believer in the principle that if you can’t say anything nice, you shouldn’t say anything at all. Even my endless rants about World of Warcraft are born from a deep love for the game and the desire to not see it squander its potential.

Yet I think the topic of why I am not currently playing Guild Wars 2’s first expansion, Heart of Thorns, and why I may never play it is an interesting story to tell. It is a tale of how a studio can burn through its entire supply of good will and turn away a former fan.

I want to be clear that I’m not seeking to bash GW2, and I still think it’s a solid game in a lot of ways. I merely wish to chart the course that took me from enthusiastic fanboy to indifferent ex-player. There is no venom behind this post; only morbid interest.

The backstory:

I want to start by detailing my history with GW2. Longtime readers of this blog will already know all of this and can safely skip to the next section of the post, but for anyone just joining us, I’d like to lay out the context.

GW2 was a rare case of my being swept up in pre-launch hype. The latest in a long line of supposedly messianic saviours of the MMORPG genre, I actually believed that GW2 could be the revolution it hoped to be.

I got into a late beta weekend, and was blown away. I bought the game shortly after launch, and I played it heavily for several weeks, reaching max level on my Norn thief main. I had many good things to say about the game on this blog, and I had some really good times.

What I most appreciated about GW2 was how laid back and casual (for lack of a better term) it felt. Log in, go wherever you want, and find tons of cool stuff to do. It was a beautiful world full of endless exploration, and I never felt pressured into any particular style of play as I so often do in WoW.

However, by the time the Karka invasion rolled around, the luster had started to fade fast. Several irritants had begun to get under my skin, such an excess of crowd control in high level zones and the extremely punishing mechanic of contested waypoints. Around this time, I also became heavily distracted by other games, such as The Secret World (which, as well know, has stolen my heart now and forever).

However, the biggest factor that made me drift away from GW2 was its story. To be invested in a game long term, I need to care about its plot and setting, and to be blunt, the story in Guild Wars 2 is every kind of suck imaginable. I give them points for a diverse cast with some LGBT characters, but that’s only kind thing I can say about the story and lore of GW2.

Thus, I drifted away, but with plans to return. Let us now chronicle how that return never came to pass.

The Living Story:

The Living Story seemed like a cool idea at first, and I can’t entirely fault ArenaNet for embarking on this noble yet flawed experiment. I do respect their willingness to try new things.

The idea of a living, evolving world is, at a visceral level, very appealing. The idea that content comes and goes over the weeks, reflecting an evolving virtual reality, feels like a very welcome concession to verisimilitude. It offers an alternative to the stale and static design of most themepark MMOs.

However, it quickly became clear that the Living Story concept did not fit at all in a game like GW2.

Guild Wars 2 was designed to the casual player’s dream. You didn’t need to pay a subscription, and it didn’t have the traditional gear treadmill, so you could come and go as you please without worrying about falling behind.

The Living Story ran exactly counter to that. With nearly all new content being time-limited, anyone who wanted to keep up with the story faced arguably an even greater pressure to log in regularly than provided by subscription games.

It also put the focus squarely on the one thing ArenaNet can’t do well: story.

I tried returning to the game once or twice during the Living Story, but I felt utterly lost as to what was going on, furthering heightening my disconnect from the game’s story and sending my motivation to keep playing even lower.

These visits to Tyria also showed me that GW2 was drifting away from its original design vision in terms of gameplay. Ascended gear provided a disturbingly swift reversal of the promise of “no gear grind,” and the public events were becoming increasingly long, difficult, and mechanically complex. This seemed an attempt to silence all those critics who (not entirely without reason) called the gameplay of GW2 mindless, but neither the critics nor the developers seem to understand that such simplicity was a core part of the game’s appeal.

I came away declaring that GW2 was “a great game that is totally ignorant of its own strengths,” and that seems increasingly true all the time.

Heart of Thorns:

When Guild Wars 2 announced it was finally getting an expansion, I thought the time for my long-awaited return to Tyria had at last come. An expansion offered an opportunity to change direction for the better, and at the least, I figured having a lot of new land to explore would keep me interested for a few weeks, even if I ultimately wandered off again.

As the weeks went by, my hype level slowly rose, and I gave serious thought to pre-ordering. The concept of elite specializations interested me greatly — more playstyle options within a class is always good — and the new revenant class sounded (still sounds) very cool. I also quite liked the idea of masteries — horizontal progression is always good.

I even logged in for the first time in months and played for a couple hours. I initially wanted to check out the new (new) Lion’s Arch, but that somehow turned into doing an event chain in the Shiverpeaks, and on the whole I had a pretty good time.

Then they dropped the R word.

I might as well be a cartoon insect for how well I react to the word “raid,” especially where Guild Wars 2 is concerned.

Did anyone — anywhere, ever — want raids in Guild Wars 2? I never heard anyone express a desire for such. Everyone seems to agree that GW2’s organized group content is a trainwreck, and I really don’t understand why ArenaNet thinks adding more players to the formula will fix that.

Still, I could have lived it if raids were an optional side feature you could ignore, but they revealed raids would be a crucial part of the story going forward. This has always been what I resent most about the traditional raiding model — locking crucial story behind the MMO genre’s most exclusive content — and it pretty much kills the last hope of my ever becoming invested in GW2’s story.

Perhaps more importantly, it signals a further shift away from the “do what you feel like” philosophy that was once the core selling feature of GW2. Suddenly it’s just another themepark forcing everyone down a single, narrow path.

It doesn’t end with raids. I had been under the impression that elite specializations would be akin to new talent choices or classes as implemented in other MMO expansions. That is, they’re available immediately after logging or at most after a minimal amount of leveling-like content.

But reading various comments and blog posts on the expansion, I learned that elite specializations actually require a fairly lengthy and not at all solo-friendly grind. This would be a baffling decision in any game, but it seems especially out of place in GW2. Though to be fair ArenaNet is already planning changes on this front.

Masteries, also, are being reported to be less a new form of horizontal progression and more a way of gating content beyond a series of lengthy grinds.

Stepping back, Guild Wars 2 now seems almost unrecognizable as the game that once captured my attention. The poster child for casual MMO gaming has done a near total 180 and now seems to be just another rigid, grind-focused themepark.

And that’s how they lost me.

* * *

Now, I can’t guarantee I’ll never come back to Guild Wars 2. We live in a world where I’m seriously considering getting into Star Wars: The Old Republic once I have a bit less on my gaming plate, so clearly miracles do happen.

But right now my motivation around GW2 is at an all-time low, and I see almost nothing left of the open-ended philosophy I once loved in the current incarnation of the game.

The game has had an amazing journey. Unfortunately, for me, it’s been a journey in entirely the wrong direction.

Filed under: Games Tagged: fantasy, Guild Wars 2

Review: The Park + Halloween in The Secret World

I’m not normally very keen on horror games, or horror in general, really. But as anyone who reads this blog knows, I adore The Secret World, so I absolutely had to buy its spin-off, The Park, as soon as pre-orders went live, and I played through it within hours of its release on Steam.

I have a lot of love for the Secret World setting, and for the bits of written by Joel Bylos (who helmed The Park) in particular, so I went in with very high expectations.

The Park is far better than I expected.

The Park is another narrative focused game, meaning it has little to no “gameplay” in the traditional sense. It’s another game to be derogatorily referred to as a walking simulator, but while that isn’t necessarily my normal cup of tea in gaming, it works well here.

It could be considered a prequel to The Secret World, but only in the very loose sense that it takes place in the same setting, uses a familiar location (the Atlantic Island Park), and takes place before the events of TSW. There are many references to TSW in The Park, but they’re subtle, and you do not need any knowledge of TSW to enjoy The Park. They are very much separate entities — they simply exist in the same universe.

In The Park, you play as Lorraine, a troubled widow whose son Callum becomes lost in the theme park after dark. As she delves deeper into the park’s twisted underbelly, nightmare and reality intertwine, and the story of Lorraine’s life and her struggles as a parent unfolds.

As in TSW, the ambiance in The Park is stellar. The music is subtle, just noticeable enough to help communicate the rising tension and dread of the game. The graphics are excellent, hauntingly beautiful and chillingly eerie.

Most impressive of all are the ambient sound effects. There were moments when the wind blowing through the foliage sounded so real I actually felt the chill even sitting in my computer chair.

What’s most interesting to me about The Park is that it really isn’t what I’d expect from a horror game. There are few jump scares (that are good enough to seriously threaten your sleep), but honestly, it’s not a terribly frightening game. Creepy, yes, but not exceptionally scary. It’s not even possible to die or lose.

What The Park excels at is character and emotion. The park is ultimately just a backdrop for a story of tragedy, depression, and the dark side of parenthood. In a game set in a haunted theme park designed to harvest the lives of the innocent, the true horror comes from struggles all too mundane, and the demons that can lurk in a person’s heart.

The Park may not be frightening in the traditional sense, but it can be profoundly disturbing.

At no point along the way does The Park’s storytelling falter, either. Its pacing is impeccable. The voice acting is top notch. The slow slide from ordinary life to surreal horror is masterfully executed.

It’s amazing to me that Funcom never even intended to release this game to the public up until about two or three months ago. It’s just something they threw together to learn the Unreal engine. And it’s absolutely brilliant.

The only thing that could be considered a negative about The Park is that it is extremely short. A full completionist play-through will take two hours at most.

Yet even there, I struggle to fault it. It’s short, but it’s an incredible ride while it lasts, and it doesn’t feel at all rushed or incomplete. It’s exactly as long as it needs to be.

If you’re a fan of The Secret World, you’ll love The Park — think Tyler Freeborn with a better emotional hook. If you’re not a fan of The Secret World, you’ll love The Park — it’s a beautifully twisted piece of interactive fiction.

Overall rating: 9.6/10 A brief but masterful experience.

While I’m on the subject, I will also mention that The Park features some swag for TSW players. Specifically, a killer chipmunk costume (which I hate, and you will too once you play The Park) and some very high level neck talismans. The jury seems to be out on how good these talismans are — half the people are saying their unusual procs make them useless, while the rest are claiming the talismans are overpowered to the point of being game-breaking.

For those who don’t currently play TSW, The Park also gives you the option of a seven day free trial. Which you should take, because TSW is awesome, and don’t you want to learn more about the Atlantic Island Park after all that?

Samhain 2015: The Seven Silences and more

On the same day as The Park’s released, The Secret World released its latest Halloween event.

This year’s new mission is The Seven Silences. It’s a good mission, though not quite on the same level as the last two events.

A bee has died. The story is that they managed to commit suicide, and it’s up to the player to travel across the world and through the world of nightmares to discover how an immortal can die.

The mystery of how exactly you can kill one of Gaia’s immortal chosen — which we always knew to be possible but supremely difficult — has been around for a long time, so it’s an interesting plot with a lot of significance to TSW’s greater mythos, though it does ultimately raise as many questions as it answers.

The ambiance is also once again absolutely top notch. I never cease to be amazed by Funcom’s ability to create the most surreal and unnerving environments — places as awe-inspiring as they are dreadful.

However, the mission is a lot longer than it needs to be, and the travel time in particular is a real drag. There are also several stages that can become quite frustrating if you fail at any point — and you probably will — due to the need to repeat the entire stage and, again, long travel time.

So it’s a decent story-arc, but it’s not on the same level as The Broadcast by any stretch of the imagination.

It’s also worth noting that you require access to Kaidan to complete the mission, so this is the first holiday mission to be completely inaccessible to new players, even if they get high level help.

However, I’m still loving Halloween in TSW. Between the new mission and the return of all the past events, there’s an almost overwhelming amount of stuff to do, and the whole event is just a joy. There’s nothing else quite like it in gaming.

Oh, sure, lots of MMOs have events, but none of them can match the quality of content or the sheer festival air that permeates TSW in Halloween. Even an antisocial curmudgeon like myself cannot help but be caught up in the wonderful sense of community and celebration it cultivates.

I’ve even put aside being a spiteful hermit for the moment, sharing my loot bags with lowbies in Kingsmouth and offering to carry lower level players through the content from time to time.

I guess my point is: Halloween in The Secret World is awesome.

Filed under: Games, Reviews Tagged: fantasy, review, The Secret World

Retro Review: Once Upon a Time, Season Three: Episodes 13-17

I continue my Netflix binge watch of Once Upon a Time’s third season. After the brilliance of the Peter Pan arc, the series has unfortunately taken a much less interesting turn as the story focuses on Oz and the Wicked Witch it produced.

“Witch Hunt”:

This is one of those “not quite filler but not terribly eventful” episodes necessary to establish the plot.

In the Enchanted Forest’s past, Regina infiltrates her castle to confront the Wicked Witch, whose proper name turns out to be Zelena, while in the present, Emma and Regina join forces in an attempt to uncover who cursed the town.

Shipping intensifies.

Also apparently flying monkeys operate under werewolf rules.

After how awesome Pan was, I thus far find myself severely underwhelmed with Zelena. She hates Regina based on arbitrary and largely nonsensical reasons, so she cursed everyone with a half-baked curse that doesn’t even seem to have accomplished much as of now. It feels terribly contrived.

The actress is hamming it up a bit, too. Although to be fair I’m not sure how you could not ham the Wicked Witch of the West.

The only thing I’m enjoying about this arc so far is Regina. Her torment over the situation with Henry is palpable, and it’s nice to finally see on the side of the guys, hopefully for real this time. She’s managing to carry an otherwise mediocre series of episodes.

Overall rating: 7/10

“The Tower”:

Okay, this one is just filler.

Both past and present plots are more or less carbon copies of each other, save that one is about Rapunzel and David and the other is just David. The theme is facing one’s fear, and this being fantasy, that means literally.

It’s not a particularly interesting story, and it feels largely disconnected from the rest of the story. The only significant revelation is that Zelena has stolen David’s courage, or a symbol thereof, for some reason.

Supposedly Zelena’s enemy is Regina, but right now all she’s done in Storybrook is insinuate herself into Snow and David’s life. It’s very confusing.

Overall rating: 6/10

“Quiet Minds”:

In this episode, the common thread in both timelines is the search for Rumpelstiltskin.

In Storybrook, Emma and Charming comb the woods for him, but they soon find that something is terribly wrong with Rumpel. Beyond the usual.

Back in the Enchanted Forest, Baelfire and Belle seek to resurrect Rumpel with the aid of a talking candelabra — because why not — but in his desperation, Baelfire makes the grave mistake of forgetting his father’s most important lesson: All magic comes at a price.

Meanwhile, Regina tries to track down Zelena with the aid of Robin Hood, and things get awkward.

This episode gets points for having a lot of Rumpel and Belle. Aside from that, it’s not especially memorable, though it also doesn’t have a lot of significant flaws.

At this point I’m never trusting a death in Once Upon a Time to last, but Baelfire’s end did have a certain note of finality to it. If that’s the case, I’m not sure how I feel. I have nothing against Baelfire, but he’s also not a character I’m going to miss terribly, and his end did seem a bit sudden and out of the blue.

It also doesn’t work very well as a way to make Zelena more menacing, since it was more due to Baelfire’s own recklessness than anything.

Overall rating: 7.2/10

“It’s Not Easy Being Green”:

This episode serves as Zelena’s origin story, and it has convinced me that I simply don’t like her.

And this isn’t the kind of “don’t like her” that you want and expect from a villain. I liked Pan even when I hated his guts. But Zelena’s just not that interesting.

I don’t know whether to chalk it up to acting, directing, or writing (or, most likely, all of the above), but she just comes across as so cheesy and hammy — even by Once Upon a Time standards — and it takes me right out of the story.

I wish I had more to say about this episode, but that’s pretty much the only feeling it left me with. I suppose I could also nitpick about how Oz appears to be another pseudo-Medieval setting when it should be more along the lines of steampunk, and I will say that Regina was quite entertainingly badass this time around.

But yeah, just not feeling Zelena. It’s especially disappointing after how awesome Pan was.

Overall rating: 6.9/10

“The Jolly Roger”:

Well, here’s a first: a Hook episode that doesn’t suck.

Even more impressive is that the other key characters here are Emma and Ariel, who are also not my favourites, but yet I still enjoyed “The Jolly Roger.”

In both timelines, Ariel seeks Hook’s aid in finding her prince, who is apparently always missing. In the Enchanted Forest, he’s been taken prisoner by Blackbeard the pirate, who has also absconded with Hook’s ship. In Storybrook, things take a darker turn still.

As this is going on, Regina once again attempts to hone Emma’s magical talent. The nice thing about Emma/Regina arcs is that Regina is awesome enough to compensate for how dull Emma is, and that holds true here, as well. Regina has some, shall we say, unconventional teaching methods, and that’s more than entertaining enough to compensate for Emma’s continued dullness.

But I digress. The real star here is Hook, and for once, that’s not a bad thing.

This is mainly because the show has stopped pretending he’s a good guy. There’s still an attempt to show him trying to do the right thing, but he fails — miserably — and that’s a lot more believable.

I’m perfectly willing to accept that there is some good in Hook so long as they also acknowledge that it’s not enough to overpower his more craven and selfish sensibilities.

Not only does “The Jolly Roger” at last acknowledge that Hook really isn’t a good guy, he also ends up having a pretty miserable time of things, which also pleases me.

I really don’t like him.

I expect this return to sanity in regards to Hook’s character probably won’t last, but I might as well enjoy while it does.

My only major complaint with this episode is the very tacky and totally unnecessary (though mercifully brief) sub-plot in which Charming attempts to convince Henry he can be just as cool as Hook. Just… no.

Overall rating: 7.5/10

Filed under: Retro Reviews Tagged: fantasy, Once Upon a Time, review, TV

BlizzCon 2015 Wishlist/Predictions

We’re now just a couple weeks away from this years BlizzCon, and as has become my tradition, I will now put together a list of what news I expect to see at the convention, as well as what I hope to see.

Warcraft:

Honestly, for all that it’s Blizzard’s flagship franchise, I don’t see there being a lot of big Warcraft news at this year’s convention.

Legion has already been announced. We’ll undoubtedly get a lot more details about its content and features, but I don’t expect anything groundbreaking. There’s always the chance Blizzard held back some major features from the initial announcement, but after Warlords of Draenor, I’m not expecting much ambition from Blizzard where WoW is concerned.

I’d love to hear that demon hunters are going to get a third spec after all, that demonology warlocks won’t be gutted for the sake of a new class, or that rogues will get a ranged option, but the ship seems to have already sailed on all of those.

Something else in the “I’d love to see it but I doubt we will” category is the possibility of HD remakes of the old Warcraft strategy games. If it didn’t happen last year for the franchise’s twentieth anniversary, though, I’m not sure it ever will.

The movie is the one potential source of exciting Warcraft news at BlizzCon, though even it’s not a sure thing. We do know that the first official trailer release will be in November, so there’s a pretty good chance it will be revealed at BlizzCon. However, they do want to market the movie to mainstream audiences more than to hardcore Blizzard fans (which is smart), and my hopes regarding a trailer have been dashed many times before, so you never know.

StarCraft:

StarCraft is something else I don’t expect a lot of big news for at BlizzCon. Legacy of the Void will be launching shortly after the convention, and we already know pretty much everything there is to know about it.

They did say they’re going to talk about what the future holds for StarCraft now that the SC2 trilogy is wrapping up, which is interesting, but I don’t imagine they’ll have a lot of definitive statements on that front.

Blizzard is very good at supporting their games over a very long haul, so I’m sure SC2 will continue to receive patches for balance and technical issues for many years to come. I also wouldn’t be surprised if they expanded on Allied Commanders — or is it just called Co-op Missions now? — a fair bit after launch.

Beyond that, though… I have no idea.

Much as I would happily accept more StarCraft, I’m sort of hoping the RTS team will shift focus to something else for a while. Yes, I want me my Warcraft IV.

Or maybe even something totally unexpected. Mage-clan Wars Diablo RTS? Overwatch spin-off about the Omnic Crisis? A totally new franchise?

There was even talk of them putting out a story-mode for Heroes of the Storm, if you can believe it. Blizzard owns my soul, so I’d play it, but that’s just a bit too ridiculous, methinks.

Diablo:

I would really love to see an expansion announcement for Diablo III at this year’s BlizzCon. It’s certainly around time for one to be due.

However, very surprisingly, that doesn’t look too likely. There’s only one (short) Diablo panel listed on the schedule. If there was to be an expansion announcement, one would expect there would be more Diablo events listed.

It’s not completely outside the realm of possibility that the schedule was made deliberately inaccurate and that more Diablo coverage will appear following an announcement during the opening ceremony, but it doesn’t seem too likely.

This is very confusing. A second expansion to Diablo III is very much expected. The ending to Reaper of Souls was not at all conclusive, and both the base game and the first expansion sold exceptionally well, so it makes both artistic and business sense.

Unless there’s going to be a significantly longer gap between RoS and the second expansion than there was between the base game and RoS, an expansion announcement must come soon, and BlizzCon is the time that makes the most sense.

Most perplexing, and perhaps a little worrying as well.

As for what an expansion might entail, well, you might as well go back and read last year’s post, because I’d just be repeating myself otherwise. I think we’ll get the druid class, though necromancer is also possible, and I have a totally baseless suspicion we’ll end up in Kurast, though I’d love to see Xiansai.

The only thing to add is that some concept art for a druid class was supposedly leaked, so the odds of it being added have gone even higher.

If there’s no expansion announcement, I expect we’ll just hear about the next patch. Expect some new sets and rebalancing of old gear, plus maybe another small zone for adventure mode like the Ruins of Sescheron. My money would be on Skovos Isles. They’ve been foreshadowed, but don’t seem interesting enough to carry a whole expansion.

Overwatch:

I’m not sure what to expect from Overwatch at this year’s BlizzCon. On the one hand, it’s the new hotness, and I can’t see any of the other games having a lot of big news (assuming there is no Diablo expansion announcement), but at the same time, Overwatch’s beta is beginning on October 27th, shortly before BlizzCon, and since that will undoubtedly be a huge infodump, I’m not sure what will be left to reveal at the convention.

At the very least, I imagine we’ll get some new hero reveals. Maybe another map, though their map list already seems pretty big going into beta.

It’s hard to say what else we might learn without knowing what beta will reveal. If we don’t learn what the game’s business model will be by the time beta rolls around, we definitely will at BlizzCon, I think. Free to play is the smart bet, considering they’re already talking about offering custom skins for heroes — microtransactions ahoy!

What I’m hoping to hear about are an optional third person mode, the removal of the ability to swap heroes on the fly in a match, and a story mode, but unfortunately none of those things seem likely. Story mode, in particular, was recently once again stated to not be in the cards, which seems like an enormous waste of potential.

Heroes of the Storm:

That just leaves Heroes.

(Well, there’s also Hearthstone, but I don’t much care about it. It’ll probably get a new single-player adventure, since they had a major expansion not that long ago.)

It’s pretty easy to predict what we’ll get for Heroes: new hero announcements and a new map or two.

As for specifics, it’s already been confirmed they’re working on another StarCraft hero to be released soon. I’m putting my money on Stukov. He’s a fan favourite, and assuming they use his infested version, that’ll be one hero of every StarCraft race released in succession: Morales for Terran, Artanis for Protoss, Stukov for Zerg.

The other major possibility would be Dehaka, who would also fulfill the role of a Zerg hero in this release cadence and who was datamined in a partial state of completion long ago. Dehaka would likely be a warrior, while I see Stukov being a specialist or assassin.

I also think we’re due for news on Zul’jin soon. His model appeared in a trailer at the last BlizzCon, and he’s now the only character from that trailer who isn’t in-game.

There’s also talk of Kel’thuzad being in development, and I’ve heard some rumours they might be adding another classic Blizzard character soon, which probably means Blackthorne.

My guess is that Stukov (or Dehaka) and Zul’jin will be in a high state of completion, with full previews and probably even playable versions at the convention, while any other heroes will only be teased.

As for who I’d like to see, well, Stukov and Zul’jin aren’t bad ideas. Honestly pretty much of all my “must have” heroes are already in the game. Right now the only major oversight in my view would be the lack of Varian Wrynn. I’d also like to see more of Diablo’s archangels and Evils, especially Auriel and Mephisto.

Could also use more Blood Elves. Valeera Sanguinar would be cool, but only if they don’t just make her a generic rogue hero. If Mark of Kathra’Natir isn’t one of her ultimates, I will be sorely disappointed. While we’re on the subject, Meryl Felstorm would be an awesome character to add to Heroes, but he’s so obscure that I doubt it’ll happen.

The new map is anyone’s guess. I still really want a sci-fi map, but they’ve already confirmed there’s no StarCraft map in the works. There was some datamining of a Warcraft map featuring the Horn of Cenarius a ways back, but I’m not sure if that’s something being seriously worked on or just an experiment that was abandoned.

I had the idea recently for a “zombie apocalypse” map similar to StarCraft II’s Outbreak mission, where both teams are periodically assaulted by hordes of hostile minions, but I’m not sure how it’d work in a PvP context.

* * *

Reading it back, it doesn’t look to be a terribly exciting BlizzCon. Well, hopefully I’m wrong, and we’ll get some big, exciting news.

What are you expecting or hoping to see Blizzard reveal in November?

Filed under: Games Tagged: Diablo, fantasy, Heroes of the Storm, Overwatch, sci-fi, Starcraft, video games, Warcraft, World of Warcraft

Review: Life Is Strange

I don’t consider myself an especially skilled or “leet” gamer, yet I have overcome some impressive challenges in my time. I beat both StarCraft II campaigns on brutal. I soloed the Girl Who Kicked the Vampire Nest in The Secret World, pre-nerf, in poorly itemized green gear while coping with game-breaking lag. I soloed the last stage of Jin’do the Godbreaker on my paladin after my entire party died.

Yet in all the years and all the games, I have faced no challenge greater, nothing that intimidated me more, than logging into Life Is Strange to pick up after the end of chapter three.

I heard going in this was a very powerful game. People said to keep a box of tissues handy when you play. Yet as intense and emotionally exhausting as the first two episodes were, I still ended up feeling like things had been exaggerated a bit. “It isn’t that bad,” I thought.

So wrong. I was very wrong.

This game will break your heart. It will burn your soul to ashes. It will crush your dreams and leave you a gibbering, broken shadow of the person you once were.

But wait. I’m getting ahead of myself.

I’ve been interested in Life Is Strange since it was announced. I thought Dontnod’s last game, Remember Me, was excellent, and Life Is Strange had an interesting premise, so even though it wasn’t my usual cup of tea in terms of mechanics, I put it on my “must play” list.

I’m not keen on the episodic format for games, though, so I figured I’d wait until all five episodes were released to start playing it. The fifth and final episode, Polarized, came out yesterday, so I finally got caught up and finished Polarized within hours of its release.

Was a Hell of a ride, to put it mildly.

Life Is Strange follows Maxine Caulfield (Max, as she prefers to be known), a geeky photography student at an elite college in Oregon. Max suffers a terrifying vision of the town being destroyed by a freak storm, and thereafter, she discovers she has the ability to rewind time at will.

It doesn’t take long for her to put her powers to use, as she witnesses the murder of a young woman at the hands of a disturbed fellow student. Max turns back the clock to save her, but this is just the beginning of Max’s temporal odyssey.

The woman she saved turns out to be Chloe Price, Max’s childhood best friend, and the two join forces in the hopes of using Max’s power for good, investigating the twin mysteries of a missing student at Max’s college and the increasingly surreal environmental disasters that are plaguing the town.

Life Is Strange is one of the new breed of narrative-based games, meaning it has almost nothing that could be called “gameplay” aside from some very rare and simple puzzles or stealth segments. It’s basically a movie that requires occasional clicking and gives you some control over the course of the plot.

This isn’t necessarily a complaint, but it’s important to manage expectations. This is a game only in the loosest sense.

Story is always what matters most to me in games, anyway, so it wasn’t too much an issue for me. In some ways it’s even better than the unhappy marriage of thick story and thin gameplay that Bioware tends to peddle.

It’s also a very artsy game. Part of what I liked about Dontnod based on Remember Me is that they very clearly believe in video games as art, but they may have gone a little too far with Life Is Strange.

I have mixed feelings. On the one hand, it’s a breathtakingly powerful and emotional game, and the characters feel real enough to reach out and touch them. On the other, the game often smacks of “trying too hard,” and far too much of Life Is Strange is spent on long, slow, pretentious montages that really don’t add anything.

There’s no better way to spoil art than to try to be artistic, and Life Is Strange does a lot of that. Which it really doesn’t need to, because it’s such an incredibly deep and powerful game without resorting to these affectations.

Also, I found some of the dialogue in the first few episodes a little dodgy. Trying to cram too much Millennial slang in there.

I could also poke some holes in the main villain, who ended up feeling rather odd and artificial, and it was all a bit cheesy compared to the rest of the game. But that ultimately is just a minor tangent to the game’s greater themes of choice and consequence.

I should also offer warning that this game deals with a lot of very dark real world issues, like abuse of girls on college campuses, drug abuse, and the like. Interestingly, the game also includes links to support groups related to some of the issues from the game, which is an interesting idea, though the cynic in me doubts anyone would actually be helped by this.

On the other hand, like Remember Me, Life Is Strange deserves credit for being pretty progressive, focusing on two very well written female characters and also dealing with diverse sexuality in a way that I think is very respectful. If you want a good representation of bisexual characters, I’d definitely recommend Life Is Strange.

The graphics are very stylized, beautiful in some ways but too cartoony in others. The music, well, it’s subjective, but I found it pretty bad. I have terrible taste, though, so don’t listen to me. The voice acting is stellar, though, and I especially need to give praise to Ashly Burch for an absolutely stunning performance as Chloe.

Beyond that… I’m not sure what to say. The downside of a pure story game is that it means there’s very little I can say about the game without getting into major spoiler territories.

What I can say is that this game is brutal. Vicious. Cruel. A major theme of the game is that Max’s changes to time are causing as many problems as they solve, and it just keeps getting worse. When you think you’ve seen the very worst Life Is Strange has to offer and can’t imagine how they could make you feel any worse, they find a way to break your heart all over again.

I’m not even going to limit myself to games. Life Is Strange is the single most emotionally devastating work of fiction I have ever experienced.

It’s probably going to take me days to recover. As the dust settles, I suspect I’ll either accept Life Is Strange as the beautifully, unflinchingly bleak tragedy it is, or come to hate to it for offering nothing but misery and despair. I’m rarely a fan of stories that offer nothing approaching a happy ending — entertainment is supposed to make us feel good, after all, and my real life has enough pain in it.

Still, if you’re going to make a story that’s nothing but pure heartbreak, this would be the way to do it.

Overall rating: …I don’t even know. I can’t.

For all that this is an amateur endeavor, I try to maintain some degree of professionalism on this blog. But this game broke me. I can’t come to any coherent conclusion about Life Is Strange. Go play Remember Me — it’s a great game that probably won’t leave you a mewling puddle on the floor.

All I can say is that Life Is Strange is an incredibly brilliant, well-made game that I deeply wish I had never even heard of.

* * *

It should probably also be noted that, by pure happenstance, many aspects of Life Is Strange hit home for me in ways they probably wouldn’t for the ordinary person. I’m not going to go into detail on a public blog, but yeah, this game really cut deep for me.

Filed under: Games, Reviews Tagged: fantasy, Life Is Strange, Oh god why, review, sci-fi