Month: November 2011

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Промоакции для игроков не только в шутерах — воспользуйся промокодом Vavada от наших партнеров и получи бонусы, которые подарят азарт и атмосферу, сравнимую с игровыми победами.

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Psychonauts

Holy crap, it’s been almost two years since I bought Psychonauts, and I finally beat it this weekend. I started it a long while ago, got distracted, and just got back around to it. Conveniently, I’m not going to let a little thing like “published 6.5 years ago” stop me from talking about a game, nor “neither online nor multiplayer.” There are lots of good and bad design bits to discuss here, and rather than cram them all into one of my tldr reviews, I am going to break this up into several days of discussion. If you need the whole thing, here, have the Zero Punctuation review. It is one of Yahtzee’s most positively reviewed games.

To make sure it gets said, since discussion often turns negative, this is a very good game, the sort people will pull out 20 years from now as gaming art or literature when people see Sturgeon’s Revelation in a sea of Farmville and Alganon. It is clever and inventive, with gameplay elements you know but a total experience not to be found elsewhere. It is varied, surprisingly deep, and decorated with little touches that are quite wonderful or sufficiently disturbing. It is worth the money (even without a sale, even 6.5 years later, but there will almost inevitably be a great sale on it coming up) and definitely worth the time. It also had a recent update when the rights reverted to the original publishers, including Steam achievements, so there’s your decorative shinies.

I’m not sure how many days of Psychonauts content I have, but there are lots of design bits to discuss here.

: Zubon

[GW2] Skill Developments

It’s pretty apparent that even after the profession is officially disclosed, ArenaNet is not happy to let their professions stagnate in pre-beta testing. Profession and skill herder, Jon Peters, wrote a really nice Friday blog post on the official ArenaNet blog about some of the things that have been iterated upon for Guild Wars 2.

First off, the engineer gets… well another skill bar putting the profession as skill master, one full skill ahead the elementalist. An engineer gets 4 toolbelt skills which are based on their slotted heal skill and 3 utility skills. This is 23 more skills for the engineer. What’s really nice is that this also allows the engineer to not have to rely on skill swapping utilities quite as much to adapt prior to combat. For example, an engineer in a single-target DPS fight might not want to pull a flamethrower out, yet it would suck if the engineer is heavily penalized for having the skill-turning utility locked in the slot. The toolbelt skill still gives the engineer some benefit for having the flamethrower slotted even if the flamethrower is not going to be used. Continue reading [GW2] Skill Developments

More Action Tower Defense

While I’m waiting for the wild pendulum swings of post-release re-balancing to slow down in Dungeon Defenders, a FPS/tower defense game is the free promo of the weekend on Steam: Sanctum. Having gone through a first map, it feels a lot like Defense Grid with a hero unit. That hero unit makes a lot of difference when you are sniping down bosses and tanks. There is also an elegant mobility mechanic, a teleportation/elevator tower, and you can pick any of them just by hitting tab. Where Dungeon Defenders gives you maps with large numbers in a few waves, Sanctum goes for 20 waves on the first map, and it took me about 45 minutes (including placing turrets, figuring out buttons, etc.).

With the weekend sale, the game is $5, or $15 for a 4-pack, or $11 for the game plus all DLC to-date, so it’s more a question of whether it is worth the time than the money to play. The comments are open for building our collective review.

: Zubon

Update: 3 people have commented. That’s probably indicative.

Defining “Nerf”

I had asked whether some scale of ability/character reduction was required before you called something a “nerf.” I think this qualifies:

Balancing Changes:

  • Nerfed Spooktacular “Van Wolfstein” weapon about 40%, and Huntress Ability ‘Piercing Shot’ about 30%
  • Nerfed Bowling Ball & Harpoon Turrets a bit more: bowling ball & harpoon damages reduced by about 33%, attack rate reduced by about 25%, bowling ball projectiles now limited to 6 hits before breaking, harpoon projectiles now limited to 12 hits before breaking.

Crap, and my level 70 is a Squire who focuses on Bowling Ball Turrets. Let’s see 2/3*3/4=1/2, so Squires just took a 50% hit to ranged damage, plus a reduction in the number of targets (meaningless at low difficulties and on early waves, huge in the endgame). Ouch.

: Zubon

Update: there is a partial rollback planned/in-progress. I’m still feeling a palpable lack of trust and “why bother logging on?” After someone trips you, even if you had it coming, you hesitate when he offers to help you up.

Pure-ish Exploration

My go to game right now is The Binding of Isaac. Most games seem to take around 1/2 hour or a little more, but each game is a pure treat. The crux of my delight is that each game will be explored and played differently because the engine procedurally creates the dungeon, bosses, and loot each time. X-ray goggles for example let me pass through the secret doors, which normally need to be found by placing a bomb next to a wall and praying it is the correct wall. Now I have more bombs available for other things. Anybody that has played a roguelike, especiallyNetHack, will be comfortably familiar with this type of exploration.

For me, this is one of the most pure exploration scenarios available in any game. Unlocking a map or reading quest text in an MMO seems to pale by comparison. The developers made the chunk of game to be explored, and others have already explored it. I would go so far as to say that in an MMO the only explorers getting pure-ish exploration are the achievers working on a world first for a raid. Everything else evokes as much exploration as me going to a museum.

I want to be the scientist finding new discoveries. I want to see emergence that the developer could have only dreamed of. For me that is a purer exploration. Continue reading Pure-ish Exploration

[GW2] Nose to the Asura Gybrasion Device

After the mega-cons, things have seemed slow from the Guild Wars 2 standpoint. There are a few interviews coming out of the smaller conventions, and a few blog posts showing off environmental concept art or the audio’s team trip to a never-used nuclear reactor have been posted. Perhaps the biggest drop in October was the grawl race’s lore posting. So, it’s been kind of slow on the news front.

I can’t help but feel that the ArenaNet team has shown the demo of their game, and now it’s time to get it done. The only mode of play that’s not been seen in action is World v. World (WvW), which I imagine to be similar in spirit to Dark Age of Camelot or Warhammer Online‘s RvR fronts. Things like WvW, other PvP maps, more dungeons, more events, and of course the elusive eighth profession have all been mentioned as being designed or refined in the Fall interviews. Continue reading [GW2] Nose to the Asura Gybrasion Device