STEALING EVERY MUG IN THE EMPIRE

In Part I, we left off in the late 90′s as technology began to offer larger worlds. As time went by, the open-world game continued to develop, and each successive iteration brought new elements, improvements, and occasionally, missteps.  The first game I encountered that truly felt like it contained pure exploration for exploration’s sake was The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind (let it be noted here that I did not play Daggerfall, the prior installment, until after Morrowind).  Released in 2002, Morrowind put you in the role of a prisoner shipped off to the outskirts of the kingdom of Tamriel.  Once you finish the character creation process, you are given a simple quest and, beyond that, complete freedom to do whatever you wanted.  Vradenfall was a large, open place, with an estimated 6 square miles of terrain to explore.  Within the bounds of the island were plenty of caves, ruins, and points of interest of all types.  On top of that, Morrowind was styled in the Ultima mold, with individual locations being incredibly detailed; searching almost any home would quickly show you that you could pick up most anything (whether they were useful or not), and poke your nose into every nook and cranny that you so pleased (until the home’s residents noticed you…).

Continue Reading…

For a while, Grand Theft Auto IV game is nothing but the extremely authored, slow-paced and dialogue-heavy saga of two Eastern European immigrants who work at a taxi service in a facsimile New York City. They have girlfriends and gambling debts, they get shit-faced drunk and sober up to heartfelt emails from Niko’s mother. The premise sounds like it belongs to a sitcom or an arthouse movie, but of course Grand Theft Auto is a series about blowing up cop cars with rocket launchers in a sprawling urban world. In this game you shop for clothes and take girls out bowling along a very narrow story path.

For hours, the game doesn’t make you do anything illegal or even put a gun into your hands. This is not Grand Theft Auto. It’s better.

Duncan at Hit Self-Destruct brings to the fore a long-standing issue with the Grand Theft Auto series: the environments keep getting more realistic, while the plotlines and gameplay stay as cartoony as ever. (Cartoony being a nicer word than, say, graphically violent.)

The hillside is rough; bare rock protrudes through the ground between patches of scrubby grass.  Despite this, the trees grow thick here, their roots sunk deep into tilted earth, holding on with all their might.  From below, it looked like finding a safe path upward was impossible, but a thorough search revealed a narrow but well-worn animal trail winding a convoluted path towards the top.  The climb is slow, but the top grows ever closer.

With a final burst of energy, you reach the crown and are taken aback by what lay before you – a lake, as blue as the sky above, stretches from just below you towards the forest on the distant hills.  In the center of the lake stands a lone island, ringed with trees, and in the center of that island stands a shrine of whitest stone, its columns radiant in the noonday sun.  From the road below, you would have had no idea such a place existed, but now it beckons to you from across the calm water.

Looks like it’s time for a swim.

Continue Reading…

There was a day, long ago, when gender in video games was an unknown topic.  This was not because no one wanted to to talk about it – it was simply because no one ever thought to talk about it.  Early games were essentially gender-neutral; players, for the most part, were not playing people, but were instead playing things.

Pong, Space Invaders, Asteroids: in all these cases, the player’s link with the gameworld is a series of tiny blocks arranged in different shapes, sometimes a spaceship, sometimes a triangle, sometimes a rectangle.  Neutral things any player could connect with.  Things were this way mostly as a limit of technology; creating more detail was not yet an option.  As such, the idea of the avatar, of the player’s representation in-game, was a simple one, and discussions about player identity were a long ways off.

Continue Reading…

As any casual observer might note, I’ve put up a new design for the site over the past couple of days; it’s still a work in progress, but I hope everyone finds it easy to read and navigate, and hopefully a little more gentle on the eyes.

Got to put in more time with Empire: Total War during the course of the week, and have been playing my way through the first campain, which covers the settlement of America; some of the battles can certainly get quite epic, but I do see a lot of issues with the general pathfinding of units, as they often seem to pick the least desireable route possible to get to their destination.   Also got to sink a few more hours into Lost Odyssey, and I can say in all honesty I’m finding it really, really boring so far, for reasons I intend to cover more in-depth in an upcoming article.  Master of Magic also continues to occupy a lot of my spare time, and all I really have to say there is that when my Shuri the Huntress and her legion of Doom Drakes shows up, your pitiful city walls aren’t going to help you.  Also bumped out a few more Scout achievements in Team Fortress 2, and I look forward to the continued raging debate over whether or not The Sandman is broken, lame, or both.

-Joel Haddock

Alas, Persona 4 is making me increasingly a liar, as every week I say that this is the week I’m finally going to finish it, and every week it proves me wrong.  I’m 55 or so hours in and have finally gotten to (more or less) the end, so if I don’t finish it by the end of this coming week, I’ll officially have to turn in my PS2.  In other news, I picked up both MadWorld and Resident Evil 5, both of which have been great, parent’s guild-baiting, violent fun.  Madworld may in fact be the most violent game I’ve ever played, enhanced only by the fact that the color red is the only color shown on top of the bleak, “Sin City Come to Life” comic book style visuals.  Resident Evil, on the other hand is much more subdued in its violence, and while the core elements are there, it just doesn’t feel like Resident Evil anymore…..look for first impressions of both games from me over the weekend.

-Jeff Feeser

When I say that I am a gamer, I consider that to mean I enjoy games in all formats.  Video games take up the bulk of my time, but I will gladly plop down at a poker table, or spend some time shouting for sheep in Settlers of Catan.  Heck, I’ll even rock the shit out of a round of Twenty Questions while cruising down the PA Turnpike. Over the years, though, one board game in particular has occupied a lot more of my time than almost any other one: Axis & Allies.

Continue Reading…

I’ve only spent a few short hours with it so far, but Empire:  Total War has taught me that, no matter how convinced you are it’s a good idea, don’t isolate a line of your musketmen at the top of an overlooking hill when you don’t know what lurks on the other side.  My train-commuting game for this week remains Fire Emblem, and though I still stick by my general desire to keep all units in my army alive, this game seems to throw so many of them at you, and all with no personality or story, that I’m tempted just to say to hell with it and let a few of them eat it.  The further information leaking out from Atlus this week about Dark Spire seems to call out to me, singing a siren song that I will spending a lot of time with… My dramatic retooling of tactics in Fantasy General seems to have paid off for the moment, and I’m actually further in the game than I have ever managed to get before; the imposing fortress at the end of the jungle island lay before, but I am confident my cavalry forces will seize the day.  And finally, in the few spare minutes in between everything else, I started up a game of Master of Magic because, well, that game still kicks ass.

-Joel Haddock

<5-6 months ago…>

JFeeser:  Oh man.  They’re  making ANOTHER 50 Cent game, and it’s him blowing up terrorists or something this time, instead of drug dealers.
JHaddock:  That sounds fantastically bad.
JFeeser:  Hey, you never know, it could be good! <snicker>
JHaddock:  You’re an idiot.
JFeeser:  Don’t worry, I’ll eat my hat if this game actually comes out.  I don’t even own a hat.  I’ll go out, buy one, and eat it.

<1 week ago…>

JFeeser:  Hey, remember how i thought that ridiculous sounding 50 Cent game wasn’t coming out?  Turns out it is.
JHaddock:  Well, you should review it.  I know how you like terrible games.  Could make good humor-fodder.
JFeeser:  Well, since you put it that way….

I played through Blood on the Sand with every intention of making a humorously scathing review that you, dear reader, could use to give yourself a laugh.  Did the game live up to my expectations?  Read on to find out…

Continue Reading…