tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7090665437113957622024-02-02T14:36:09.257+01:00Typical NerdGamer Gaming GamesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-52870788679993310022017-08-08T21:16:00.001+02:002017-08-08T21:16:35.438+02:00The Witcher 3Released in 2015, The Witcher 3 quickly advanced to become the new high standard of action role playing games - of all times. CD Project Red, a polish studio, created a masterpiece of a video game based on the characters of novels by polish author Andrzej Sapkowski. This game eats away at your time and is an amazing ending to the great Witcher Trilogy. Such high praise cannot be given to every game - although there are some out there. In fact, I’ve written about one of them in the past, Dragon Age Origins. But, despite all the praise, there are also some things wrong with this game and I’ll address them as well. Unfortunately, it was one of the core elements that didn’t really resonate with me at all, the combat. Let's get this out of the way so we can focus on the good parts and end on a high note, shall we?<br />
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Combat</h2>
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Let me make a bold claim right up front:<br />
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<i>The sword fights are as close to annoying as the shield bearers were in Counter Strike when introduced a millennium ago. </i><br />
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In theory, the combat sounds actually very interesting. It is a nice deviation from the much more simplistic action oriented hack’n’slay of the likes of Skyrim or Diablo or the shooter based Mass Effect saga. It’s a form of sword combat that isn’t a simulation in any way, nor should it, but realistic enough to be believable in the context of the setting that this game takes place.
For one, Witcher Geralt has two swords of different materials. A steel one for everything that is a normal being as we know it, like humans or animals, and a silver one for everything ranging from common wraiths and vampires to any sort of monster and vicious mythical creature that roams this world. In addition to that, swords and armor can be enhanced by runes if sockets are available in the gear, giving them special and permanent powers, like fire damage or enhancing Geralts signs (the simple form of magic the Witcher can wield). On top of that, every enemy is vulnerable to some form of – let’s call it poison for the sake of simplicity – that Geralt can coat his blades with. These poisonous coatings are prepared and applied as oils and the ingredients for those come from different sources; plants, animals and monsters alike. This adds quite the depth to the whole combat system. The aforementioned magic for simpletons, the signs, which are five disciplines that provide destruction, armor and some form of mind control, can be utilized in fights as well. This way you can get around some enemy’s behavior, shield yourself from impact or be a pyromaniac, if that sort of thing tickles your fancy. Speaking of magic, the game also has potions as complement to all the alcohol you will find. Geralt can concoct several Witcher draughts, unpleasant drinks with different effects on Geralt or others. For starters, there are healing potions - you can't have a role-playing game without them. But you can also brew drinks for repelling monsters, or give you an advantage in a fight against a foe, all very specialized on the type of enemy. Sounds all very cool, right? So, what’s my issue?
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Here it is: it gets boring and tedious very quickly. I have tried several times to play as it was intended because in theory it is totally awesome. But so far, I’ve always come back to cheating to get the fights over with quickly. I know, not the heroic thing to do, spoiling the fun for me, my friends, my family and their pets. But it’s so frickin’ lame...<br />
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It's the fights, the mechanic of it. Some may call it tactical, me, I just call it annoying. In case of monsters you really must be careful not to run into a horde of them or they'll stun-kill you in no time. Like Geralt, they can perform several attacks, let it be simple swings of claws, in quick succession. If you get trapped between a few Nekkers or Drowners and all manage to get a swing at you as a group then it's game over. That means I'm complaining about a simple fact of life? Well, I get that this is how it would work in the real world. The thing is, monsters mostly come in groups and a lot of them are as wickedly fast as Geralt himself. They throw themselves at you without any hesitation, like you would expect from the vicious, bloody creatures that they are. It’s very simple to get trapped and slapped quickly. You really need to circle around them, keep them in front of you and pick ‘em off one by one.
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It's somehow even worse with human enemies, especially in large groups. They have the ability to block your attacks with their weapons or shields (them noobs) which will drag quarrels out even longer. Humans are not as fast as monsters, but that doesn't make it any better. Human enemies have one or two mates with long range weapons. If you're not careful, you can be sure they get a few hits at you before you know they're even there. Again, you must pick them off one by one, trying not to get too close to alarm everyone at the same time. But, since Witcher 3 is not a game that was created with stealth in mind this comes down to tedious grunt work. It’s not the DNA of the game and that’s the problem. At least to me. There's no everyone-take-your-turn-combat like in the Batman: Arkham series of games – which is totally awesome. Or like in Shadow of Mordor, to name something where swords are used as weapons. There you have it. This is my gripe with the mechanics. I don't know why, but in Witcher 2 it didn't feel that bad. I really had nothing to complain about in this regard.
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Let me also quickly lose a few words on the potion and oil thing. I get the feeling that one would do this only in preparation of a fight where it's known in advance what will happen. Otherwise I just think there are too many oils and especially potions to choose from. Navigating the inventory to find the right juice does not seem worth it. The overwhelming numbers and how they are distinguished from each other is pretty discouraging. Unless you know which one to select by its color variant you need to wait for a tooltip to appear – something that takes time away from playing the game. You might find yourself not even having the right tool for the job, making looking for one even more so a waste of time. I ended up finding a mod that automatically applies the oils to the blades if present in the inventory and that was it for me. I never bothered with potions other than Cat and Swallow (until the God Mode cheat) and those I had in the very few quick slots.
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So, once I had found a mod that provides invincibility and allowed to increase damage (and many other aspects of the combat system others use for the opposite purpose, to make the game more challenging) I was able to enjoy the rest of this otherwise fantastic game.<br />
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Characters and Gameplay</h2>
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The Witcher 3 is game that is centered around a set of characters that were developed throughout the first two predecessors as well as a few new ones. Even parts of the story had already appeared in them, at least hinting at what the overall theme might be. I will try not to summarize the story or introduce all the characters. That would take up too many space and this piece is pretty long already.
The main plot is nothing complicated and doesn’t contain any unforeseen twists and turns that’ll make your head spin. It is a pretty straightforward adventure. But it is so incredibly well told and presented that, if you were to add together all the cut-scenes and watch it as a movie, you’d surely be well entertained. The Witcher 3 totally lives off its characters, their personalities and how they interact with each other. You will get attached to Geralt and his bunch and start to feel with them. It’s like an interactive TV drama that sucks you in. Geralt’s journey is very long and he meets so many people along the way, all of them with their own complex situation. This game is so incredibly rich. And although everything is scripted, your decisions in dialogues do have weight. Some choices definitely impact how the game ends, especially how you treat Ciri. It doesn’t seem that way while you’re at it and once I had finished the game, it didn’t occur to me that this was just one of three endings. I had absolutely no clue, it was all so convincing and coherent.</div>
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But this isn’t only true for the main story. Even side quests are fully voice acted and not only contain simple kill-and-retrieve tasks for dumb Witchers. Although some are more simplistic than others, almost all contain a nicely narrated tale of their own, extremely well embedded in the overall setting, a war-ravaged country with defeated and oppressed citizens, refugees and an occupying force. They tell stories of the people that live there. And as already mentioned before, your choices will impact the world in more or less dramatic ways. Who will you help once it comes to enthrone a new ruler in Skellige? Cerys? Hjalmar? Or will you let it run its course and not interfere, be a Witcher true to the trade (something Geralt usually manages to fail at)?
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Speaking of the world. It is simply fantastic. Open world games usually have the same problem: artificially created tasks to keep you busy running around. Although the Witcher 3 has some form of that as well, you can safely ignore it. It’s treasure hunts spread all across the map. Mini tasks that result in random loot left behind on the battlefield, hidden stashes from unfortunate wanderers killed by monsters, monster nest to clear or chests guarded by monsters. But it’s just there for you to discover should you decide to wander around and spent time exploring this gorgeous world CD Project Red has designed for us (and you definitely should!). There are no towers you must liberate or pirate camps to clear for some questionable reasons. Whatever you do in the game, it has an origin that makes sense.
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Some quests even tell two sides of the story, giving you the hard choice of who to believe and how to continue. You will sometimes be surprised how something that seemed so obvious has another side to it. But by then it’s too late because you have already made your decision and must now live with the consequences. If there are any plot twists in this game then you’ll only really find them in side quests. They are, at times, deceivingly narrated, but that’s only what people would do to manipulate others into helping them. So why should the game be any different? It makes for a believable world and by far the best open world I have spent time in.
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One little negative point: there is a lot to read as well, like letters and notes you find on corpses around the world that mostly turn into treasure hunts, small fetch-and-keep-for-yourself tasks. Of course there are also many, many books, all of which paint a picture of the world, either through historical knowledge or customs. What I find negative is that it isn’t narrated and you need to read yourself. Especially given the font and background color and the size of it. Not optimal.
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Character Development</h2>
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A role playing game always comes with a skill system to pimp your character’s abilities. The Witcher 3 is no exception and the way it is implemented is a waste development time. I don’t think the system employed is a good one. You can choose between a lot of skills and upgrade to your style of play. Prefer strong sword attacks? Or fast attacks? Or are you more of a magic or herbalist type? So far so good. But at higher character levels you have developed more skills than can be active because, and that’s what I don’t like, there is only a limited number of slots for skills. So once you have found your preferred combination all other skill points you gain for level-ups sit there unused. Why the hell? Why can’t I learn and use everything?<br />
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Gwent</h2>
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All Witcher games always had a mini game inside of the main game. The original Witcher came with a dice game, the second had a much simplified version of that and arm wrestling. The Witcher 3 ditches those and comes with a new game, Gwent. It’s so amazingly addictive once you get into it, it’s unbelievable. The rules are simple and I won’t rehash them here, but as simple as they are, they make for a very tactical and engaging gameplay. Sometimes, I have spent entire gaming sessions just playing Gwent. Hours at a time. The Blood and Wine Addon has a quest where you need to complete a new set of cards by playing 19 (I think that was the number) different people to win one card from each of them. And that’s what I did. Played them all in one go, nothing in between. So fun. So addictive.<br />
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Graphics and Sound</h2>
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The complete package can be described with only one word: spectacular. The Witcher 3 is such a beautiful game, even with some reduced details on my aging GTX 970 that has to run it in 1440p. The lighting, the shadows, the animations, the textures, the art design. Just beautiful. The cinematic sequences: amazing. It is such a complete package. The same goes for the sound and music. If you have a surround system and a good audio card, you can get very good positional audio. But apart from the technical aspects, the game, as is the case with graphics, knows how to shine on an execution level. The voice acting is superb. The music is on point and totally matches the theme of the setting. Calm when you are exploring, pushing and exciting when you are fighting. If you fancy medieval or folk tunes you’ll feel right at home.</div>
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However, as mentioned in a previous section, I would have loved for more narration instead of presenting long text that is unpleasant to read in terms of presentation. I also get the feeling that children’s voice actors are not actually children all the time. Sometimes they sound like forcefully high pitched grown ups. Many actors also appear several times, which is only logical, given how many people there are in this game that you interact with. But they do a good job of changing the tone or the dialect to sound different enough so you don’t notice immediately. You will if you play long enough and learn some individual characteristics, but it does not matter. It won’t change the fact that the work performed is really good. Geralt could use a bit more treble in his voice though. Sometimes it feels like he’s talking mostly through the subwoofer.
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Verdict</h2>
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What I think of the game is clear. I made that point obvious right from the start. It is a must play, especially if you have played the first two Witcher games. The combat thing is probably an issue of mine. I might try it once more, now that I really know the mechanics of it. The game as a whole is just so great that somehow I can’t let it go. At least at the moment. I thought the same of Dragon Age Inquisition, which has a great story in itself, but the gameplay, although very cool on the first play-through, didn’t provide me with enough motivation to do it a second time (curse of a typical open world game?). Not so The Witcher 3. It feels much cooler, much more compelling to continue to wander around and discover things. And since I know there are different endings, I might play a Geralt that is different from the first two times I finished the game.</div>
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-26361676813724713232015-10-18T08:48:00.000+02:002015-10-18T08:48:50.201+02:00Tomb Raider 2013Almost everybody knows Lara Croft, even those people that don’t really play games. At least they have heard that name before, probably through the movies with Angelina Jolie. In 2013 Square Enix rebooted the whole series and created a game that is so immersive beyond just the exploring of dungeons and ruins. It depicts how the Lara Croft of old, the tough archeologist, came to be. I know the old games, I played a few, but they never really hooked me. If it had not been for a promo code that came with an AMD video card I probably wouldn’t even own Tomb Raider.<br />
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But I do. In fact, since it came out about two years ago. That’s when I bought that graphics card. But ever since, this game rotted in my Steam library. What a shame that was. But it was also some sort of win because as of today I had no trouble cranking up the graphics settings to full ultra maximum (violence) and enjoy stunning visuals without any hiccup.<br />
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But that’s not the reason I’m writing this. Just like Dragon Age Origins, this game impressed me quite a bit with its gameplay. It has some flaws, of course - which game doesn’t – but compared to the whole work of art that’s on display here, they are so minor and, in some way, actually contribute to the tension and excitement.<br />
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This game consists of equal parts exploration, action and story. It wouldn’t be a worthy Tomb Raider game if there weren’t any tombs to raid and puzzles to solve. But not only are there tombs but also hidden artifacts scattered across the maps that, upon finding, reveal a bit of background on the story or historical facts about the island where it all takes place. The more you find the more pieces of the story puzzle you have to dread what is happening. And it is quite a mystery.<br />
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In short, there’s an ancient spirit of the so-called Sun Queen of Yamatai that was once betrayed and since then rages storms and causes planes to drop and ships to sink that come near the island or want to leave it. One survivor that got stranded on the island 30 years ago built himself a following, a damn sadistic and violent cult, to worship the queen, waiting for the right sacrifice to transfer the spirit from the old and decayed body into a new host. Unless that is done or the old body destroyed no one is allowed to leave.<br />
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Lara and her crew are actually looking for this island, not knowing the danger they are going to face. As a result, their ship is caught in one such raging storm and they unwillingly crash on the shores of Yamatai. This is where it starts. Lara is separated from her friends and has to learn how to survive. For one, being alone in the wilderness and second because of the crazy cult that kidnaps one of the crew members, an American-Japanese girl, that is a far descendant of the Sun Queen.<br />
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Now the quest for survival of Lara and her friends begins. You explore a lot of regions and almost all of them are continuously linked together. It is not an open-world environment but you don’t jump from map to map once a level has been completed. It really feels like a cohesive adventure. But to me the exploration is just a relief to the intense moments the game provides. There’s action aplenty, maybe too much if you compare it with all its predecessors, but it is cleverly intermingled with the adventure and the story elements.<br />
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But it is not just a simple shooter or a game where you are sneaking around all the time. You see Lara grow her character from the first moment she has to gut a deer for food, the dread and disgust in her eyes and voice of what she has to do, until the very end, where she confidently touts her enemies that they’ll never be able stop her. This game develops Lara’s character from a brilliant, young archeologist to a tough fighter that is not afraid to venture forth and face whatever there is, no matter how dangerous. But she’s not a ruthless killing machine either. She’s a human being that really cares for her friends and is deeply wounded and in pain when they die. What she does and what she becomes is because of what she has to do to get them all of the island safely. It is an emotional rollercoaster. All those moments are presented through in-game cut scenes, the journals you find and Lara’s thoughts, reflecting at a camp or reacting to the situation when you see not so normal things.<br />
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At the very beginning I have talked about flaws in the game and how they might actually not be flaws at all. This game is littered with quick time events. Some are triggered at a certain point in the level and some are based on Lara’s combat skills and how you use them. There are numerous moments that include button mashing and then pressing another button at the right moment to successfully get out of the situation. For example, Lara often has to wrestle free of a foes grip and this is where you torture the left and right buttons in quick succession. At a certain point you are required to hit another one, but at exactly the right moment. Sounds easy enough, but apart from mashing left and right the finisher button varies quite a bit. And, it’s not only about pressing at the right moment, sometimes you have to mash it. And – I’m not done yet – you have to be quick to spot which button it is and what to do. And, at least it felt to me that way, if there is timing involved I think it changed from time to time. As a gamer this drives me nuts. I hate it when I can’t rely on muscle memory to be successful. But, after the fact, I think this is what makes these moments so thrilling.<br />
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Another thing that was a bit frustrating at times was the camera. Mostly you play Lara from above her head in 3rd person. Every now and then though, the camera changes to a very cinematic angle. That looks cool and all but it also obscures the view. In about, let’s say, 80% you immediately figure out where to go but sometimes, only sometimes, there is so much going on (like everything around you is falling apart or you find yourself in the middle of a fierce snow storm) that will make it hard to find the next ledge to grab or the next wall to ram your climbing axe into. But this also adds to the experience. This game is very intense and thrilling. Being under fire from turrets while the buildings around you burn and crash? Having some ancient guards of the Sun Queen charge at you because you plan on walking into her temple and release her soul? It’s all in there. And even more. How about sliding down a hill while parts of a crashed plane are coming right behind you? This is where the quick time events and camera angles shine. They pull you right into the action.<br />
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And, as is the case with any extreme situation a group of people is thrown into, there’s also a social tension. Some of the survivors of the expedition die and that puts a strain on the relations among them. There’s a sneaky bastard only acting in his personal interest. How they interact with each other is very well depicted and really believable. There’s nothing that makes you want to slap your hands on your head. And this all comes to life with in-game graphics (no pre-rendered video) and extremely good voice acting. This is also true for all the diaries and notes you find. Luckily the devs decided to not only present them as text but also have them narrated by different people, depending on whose notes they are. This is awesome work. This is really the reason I prefer the original localization. Some German translations are actually very good, like the Batman Arkham XYZ series, but some are just mediocre, like Dragon Age Origins, or even plain bad, like Assassin’s Creed 1.<br />
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Oh, have I already mentioned that the developers designed a very, very attractive model? I mean, what would Tomb Raider be without a good looking Lara Croft? Only that in this game Lara is made to be a person as well, not just a cool (and smart, granted) chick with a very obvious visual quality.<br />
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I have played through this game in just four days and recorded my gameplay as a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_FVOJyAFvFN2c8XM2R1sMhXojFluWLbJ">Let’s Play Tomb Raider</a> in light of the upcoming Rise of the Tomb Raider. Unfortunately, the PC version isn’t due until next year so I stressed myself for nothing (the Xbox One will get it in November). But, since I have vacation, these have been a very fun four days. It’s nice to actually plow through a game in one piece instead of several months. If you haven’t bought it already: do it!
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-27866775551888227842015-10-09T11:35:00.000+02:002015-10-09T14:09:55.412+02:00YouTube Video Quality - Resolution DependanceIf you’re one of those guys or girls that share their video gameplay on YouTube as a Let’s Play then you are probably very interested in how good the video looks once uploaded to and processed by YouTube. YouTube encodes every video you throw at it, every single one, in order to have it in all the available resolutions and, more importantly, in a format that can be streamed and displayed by their web video player. With another step of encoding being done, a step where you have no control over, a lot of quality is getting lost because of the rather low bitrates YouTube chooses, especially for modern games that are visually very complex. How can you get around that?<br />
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I’m not going into all the details that comprise video recording and encoding of gameplay. I merely compare what influence the video resolution has on the quality of the resulting video on YouTube.<br />
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Of course, your source should be of a high quality. What does high mean? In the best event lossless, of course, but who has the time to upload 60 – 70 GB of video for about 20 minutes of gameplay. So you compress it first, at the moment H264 should be the video codec of choice for most gamers, and the upload it. If possible, select an application or custom workflow that utilizes the x264 encoder. It produces the best quality by far. The downside: it’s purely CPU drive so you need as much cores as possible. But, in my tests evaluating a video editing software, it was still the fastest compared to the MainConcept encoder without hardware acceleration (which didn’t work with my GTX970; could be an issue of Sony Movie Studio that I tested). Also you should prefer a constant rate factor (CRF) over variable bitrate (VBR) because that lets the encoder decide how much bitrate to use based on the source material. This way you don’t have to tune the setting for each and every game or use a too high bitrate range for games that don’t need it. I recommend a CRF of about 20 or 21. That produces a video that is as close to lossless as possible in a decent amount of time (running on a 3.8 GHz 6-core monster). For my videos I use TMPGEnc Video Mastering Works 6 which comes with the x264 encoder but uses a percent based rate factor instead of what x264 usually uses (which seems rather random to me, but hey, those guys are smarter than me so there must be a reason). I set that value to 64% which is somewhere around CRF20.<br />
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Enough of that now, let’s get to the actual topic: the influence of the resolution. This one I can make very short. If you record Full-HD, i.e. 1920x1080 you should consider scaling to at least 2048x1152. It adds a very tiny bit of blur or jagged edges on some texts but regarding YouTube it is totally worth it. From my comparisons it looks like, and I have read that in forums as well, YouTube uses the quality setting of the 1440p resolution which gives you a much better quality. Following are a set of images of two games recorded in 1080p and uploaded in 1080p, 1152p and also 1440p (the latter two scaled from Full-HD). Here are the links to the respective videos.
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<li><a href="https://youtu.be/dCqHSQiuZbg">1080p</a></li>
<li><a href="https://youtu.be/hWOiEazCa6Y">1152p</a></li>
<li><a href="https://youtu.be/vcmqBg_sNWo">1440p</a></li>
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Now the screenshots taken from the YouTube web player on a Full-HD monitor. 1440p might look better on a higher resolution display but on a 1080p monitor I can see no difference to 1152p.<br />
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Batman Image 1: 1080<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2KkjjvLETY7drMr_FFkTKhKz14OzoWKa5RINZdL9h-LmYeGlr8onQcL_XEKAfXi6U_-WXnEBiPikgJzXeofg5bj_iDL17ILBrED6hHf6fu1HnPVIdeJG06p-2snfMoQLfgA2epBPyPWfD/s1600/Bats-1080.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2KkjjvLETY7drMr_FFkTKhKz14OzoWKa5RINZdL9h-LmYeGlr8onQcL_XEKAfXi6U_-WXnEBiPikgJzXeofg5bj_iDL17ILBrED6hHf6fu1HnPVIdeJG06p-2snfMoQLfgA2epBPyPWfD/s320/Bats-1080.png" width="320" /> </a></div>
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Batman Image 1: 1152</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6LPmCFpEIy7I9BnL5jAMzP7lo6CVjYqTNi-33eTchyIUfn6GuQJIFwdMGNLbJpjAqk80RD_0Vxd330-aiAlIiCwAPRyO51oSR-ZG1p6EoXf5CVt3TTh5M1qs42h0dt0spsPkmnSw3YiW/s1600/Bats-1152.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="177" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja6LPmCFpEIy7I9BnL5jAMzP7lo6CVjYqTNi-33eTchyIUfn6GuQJIFwdMGNLbJpjAqk80RD_0Vxd330-aiAlIiCwAPRyO51oSR-ZG1p6EoXf5CVt3TTh5M1qs42h0dt0spsPkmnSw3YiW/s320/Bats-1152.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Batman Image 1: 1440 <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPclYiyPurMbFPwBPpx6mGbExsP-FQDJJeF9rco9Dm66SFOFEgXUPWj1p4n1W1e7icStt_dfCGvyWezBUlfi6JRBKgZVpyN3nTpuCb3dTWUrhgEtQOVY7UVVyH5X1T3U0WsDkqUwxdgka/s1600/Bats-1440.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgNPclYiyPurMbFPwBPpx6mGbExsP-FQDJJeF9rco9Dm66SFOFEgXUPWj1p4n1W1e7icStt_dfCGvyWezBUlfi6JRBKgZVpyN3nTpuCb3dTWUrhgEtQOVY7UVVyH5X1T3U0WsDkqUwxdgka/s320/Bats-1440.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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Batman Image 2: 1080 <br />
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Batman Image 2: 1152 <br />
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Batman Image 2: 1440<br />
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<span id="goog_1137200975">Dragon Age Inquisition Image 1: 1080</span><span id="goog_1137200976"></span><br />
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<span id="goog_1137200975">Dragon Age Inquisition Image 1: 1152</span> <br />
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<span id="goog_1137200975">Dragon Age Inquisition Image 1: 1152</span> <br />
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<span id="goog_1137200975">Dragon Age Inquisition Image 2: 1080</span><br />
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<span id="goog_1137200975">Dragon Age Inquisition Image 2: 1440</span> <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-53722075680122156542015-05-17T12:39:00.000+02:002015-05-17T12:39:47.750+02:00Dragon Age Origins: What an Awesome GameThe last time that I’ve written about a computer game dates quite a while back. To be exact, it was the 29th of September 2013 and I <a href="http://typicalnerd.blogspot.de/2013/09/borderlands.html">discussed the Borderlands</a> franchise (<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SgRQ_MnJ3OU&list=PL_FVOJyAFvFPutYyj3G_S_1COg1e3Qi1V">of which I’m currently doing a co-op Let’s Play</a>). Before that I wrote about <a href="http://typicalnerd.blogspot.de/2013/05/torchlight-2.html">Torchlight</a> and before that <a href="http://typicalnerd.blogspot.com/2012/10/diablo-3-still-rocks.html">Diablo 3</a> (<a href="http://typicalnerd.blogspot.com/2012/07/diablo-3-rocks.html">several times</a>). I don’t know what took me so long, but I guess I was simply busy playing the games rather than writing about them. Dragon Age Origins, however, made me feel about a game like no other did before and I just have to tell you about this.<br />
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First off, did you notice a theme here? I like RPGs. I even enjoyed The Witcher 1 + 2 in the meantime and maybe after The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, I’ll dedicate a few words to this franchise as well. It’s certainly worth it. But this is about Dragon Age Origins and why it made me write about a video game again. Like all the games I just mentioned, it is an RPG and except for The Witcher it differentiates in one key aspect: it establishes a strong emotional bond with the characters.<br />
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In Torchlight you have no connection at all. You can select a class and give it a name. That’s it. Apart from the gameplay – i.e. your skills - it doesn’t matter. This game only needs a puppet - and you are its master (music reference, got it?) - in order to make it run around and smash things.<br />
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Diablo 3 goes quite a step further and lets the hero and the NPCs you interact with talk. It tells a nice story that serves as the reason for you to beat things up. It’s really well done, with a rather bitter ending once you look past the fact that you’ve killed the lord of the underworld. But somehow it doesn’t matter. The important thing at that point are the items that are dropped. This is just the way how Diablo works and has always worked.<br />
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Lastly, there is Borderlands. This series of games only cares about one thing and that is fun. The story, which is surprisingly well told in Borderlands 2, is just a tool to get badass heroes to kill badass enemies. It’s full of trash talk, curses, testosterone and seriously disturbed black humor which makes for a very entertaining time killer (pun intended). But, in the end, through the way the protagonists and antagonists are shown, you easily forget them once you quit the game.<br />
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Not so much with Dragon Age Origins. This game is purely character driven, despite the fact that it has a very extensive skill tree. Bioware, known for a lot of great role playing games, is presenting you with a fantasy adventure you’ll only forget if you are a robot of some sort. If there is a little bit of empathy in you, you will care - or think I’m crazy otherwise (robot it is then).<br />
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Now, why is it so special? In the grand scheme of things the story is yet another canvas to present battles on, good versus evil, like in all the games I just mentioned. The difference is, it creates a world as big and rich as Tolkien did with middle-earth or George R.R. Martin in his A Song of Ice and Fire novels. Dragon Age Origins contains so much written and spoken word that it’s probably enough to fill an entire book with. A lot of it has to do with the game and its ultimate goal, the other is complementary information, like history about how certain things came to be or rather “uninteresting” writings like poems or songs. Although I say uninteresting, it shows just how much attention to and love for detail has been invested into creating an immersive fantasy world.<br />
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Spoiler alert! If you’ve not played the game and care to do so, be aware that the following will spoil the ending. It’ll not just tell you how it ends, it really spoils it, twice (there are several possibilities)! With that out of the way, what’s it about?<br />
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It’s about a group of heroes bonded by coincidence, fate and plan. They have to defeat an invasion – The Blight - of so called Darkspawn that is ravaging the lands of Ferelden. Its leader is a spirit called the Archdemon and in its physical form wreaks havoc as a huge and fearsome dragon - hence the name of the game. There’s a small band of brothers (TV reference, got it?) devoted to stopping this recurring Armageddon and they are called the Grey Wardens. Your character will become a member of this group of mighty monster slayers, but not without a price (more on that later).<br />
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Here’s the first difference to all the other games: not only can you create your hero in every little detail like race, class, skills and looks, you also get to play an origin story based on your selection. Unlike in Diablo, Torchlight or Borderlands (The Witcher doesn’t count because it’s always Gerald you are playing) you don’t just begin your journey where every other character does. There’s a backstory to almost every combination. Some are shared, I think, but it’s a lot for you to discover. Once you start a second play through with another hero, you’ll really become aware that they all are basically happening at the same time.<br />
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The second difference lies in the interactions with the world. Diablo 3 for example allows you to select individual topics of conversations, but it doesn’t let you play an active role in them. Dragon Age does and in many cases your “behavior” influences how your companions see you and interact with you. They also often express their personal opinion when it comes to decide on how to handle a quest, all based on their own identity. Depending on how you assemble your squad, this can result in very interesting arguments among them. You can even talk to them individually to gain trust or lose trust, mostly about personal matters. If you go too far you may even drive party members away, for good. It all depends on how you choose to answer to direct questions and quest topics and the individual’s personality. There are good characters that try to help wherever they can and there are those that prefer a survival of the fittest approach, something you’ll discover early on. When you are on the road, they chat with each other, either in kind, sometimes joking around or simply flat out mean, depending on who is talking to whom. Very entertaining and a sign of attention to detail on part of the developers.<br />
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Through your actions you can forge strong friendships, gain respect among feared warriors and even take part in romances. At a certain level of friendship your companions open up to you and reveal more and more of their backstory. From what I’ve experienced so far, all have a personal quest in store. Once you’ve completed it, it’ll boost your status with that “person”. The Witcher has some of these mechanics as well, but among the core characters the relationships are pretty much set. Dragon Age Origins gives you as much freedom as possible to assemble your preferred team of monster slayers, be it purely practical in order to have the most effective group of killers or through a personal preference of “people” you’d like to have by your side on this dangerous adventure. You can mix and match however you fancy with the only limitation being that your fellowship can merely have a total of four (yourself included) fighters when not in camp. Oh, and there’s the totally devoted dog if you elect to help in the first place and take it with you some time later. “Chat” with it in the camp and you’ll get quite a few good laughs out of it.<br />
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The story itself is presented using pre-rendered videos, in-games cut scenes and through spoken dialogs. The videos are of a generic nature and apply to any kind of hero you have created for yourself. The in-game scenes are used when your character actively participates in the action, which make them more personal because it’s the guy or gal you made up. What they all have in common is good directing and great voice acting. The same is true for all of the dialogs. Every character of importance, and there are quite a few, has been outfitted with a very good voice actor. On top of that, the game engine renders very believable facial expressions. This combined with these awesome speakers make conversations feel as realistically as possible in a computer game. The characters really come to life. For me, this is what puts this game over the top. Although The Witcher is a close contestant, Dragon Age feels more personal. It doesn’t even matter that your own hero doesn’t talk himself, something that has been rectified in the sequels.<br />
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(Mind you, this applies to the English version of the game. The German localization is decent enough, but nowhere near the original.)<br />
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Whether it is a one-on-one conversation with one of your party members, any other NPC or a hearing in a town hall where alliances are decided and traitors are to be exposed (The Landsmeet), it feels like you are in the middle of it, partaking. But you don’t get to just watch. You select from a list of different answers and therefore decide on the outcome. On occasion, the decision is not an easy one to make. The result might be a battle or the opposition giving in because you are too convincing. The options that are available may depend on the skills you have selected. If you put enough points into the Cunning attribute and skill Coercion you may sway even powerful foes through persuasion or intimidation. Either way, from time to time you have to make sacrifices, no matter how silver your tongue is.<br />
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This was especially true when I was almost through the game. Not long before you head into the final battle, a big secret of the Grey Wardens is revealed. From the joining ritual you know that a Grey Warden is linked to the Darkspawn by drinking its blood. This connection is crucial when it comes to defeating the Archdemon. Upon physical death, the demon’s spirit tries to find another vessel, some other Darkspawn creature, to continue to exist. With the Darkspawn blood flowing through a Warden’s veins he becomes a target host for that spirit. The only difference, the Warden has its own spirit whereas Darkspawn has not. It is basically just a fancy name for a zombie. Since two spirits cannot inhabit one body at the same time they both eliminate themselves in the process, killing the Archdemon and the Warden.<br />
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The way I have played the game, my character (I called him Drölf, because “elf, zwölf, drölf…” nevermind) was in a relationship with Morrigan, the group member that was there because her mother (the infamous Witch of the Wilds) had a plan. On the evening of the final battle she approached Drölf and offered him a solution where no one would have to sacrifice himself. Conceive a child with her that, through its innocence and then still unborn state, would be able to absorb the demon’s spirit without being harmed. The only downside to this Dark Ritual is that she’d immediately vanish as soon as the dragon’s dead. If the Warden were to decline this proposal she’d even leave before the battle. This is totally consistent with how that character was portrayed throughout the game, a strong, pragmatic, slightly dark and cynic, self-confident woman (I found that very appealing). In my case though, Morrigan cared for Drölf at that point. It wasn't just a mission any more.<br />
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Since I had invested about 60 hours of playing time up to this event, all spent by killing monsters and honing virtual relationships, I was caught by surprise and couldn’t respond at once. I really had to think about it. Since she’d be gone either way, I chose to be a hero that lives and by that also save the one other party member that was a Grey Warden, Alistair, who had been part of the group from the very beginning. What pushed this moment over the top was the aforementioned great voice acting and facial expressions. I could see and hear that at that point it wasn’t an easy decision for Morrigan either. When it finally came to selecting the four warriors that were to fight the dragon, all group members expressed their last thoughts and Morrigan’s part, once again, was so emotional it really conjured up mixed feelings.<br />
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For one, it was an overall dire situation with the main city being overrun by a Darkspawn horde led by the Archdemon. There was chaos and death everywhere. The city was in ruins and fires were burning all over the place. People were screaming and the sound of war was around every corner. Then there was the emotional burden that a beloved character would vanish into thin air when all is said and done, with your hero’s unborn virtual child. No other game had me feel like this before. I was caught in between wanting to finish this sucker off and not wanting to do it at all. In the end, curiosity and the urge to get to the end gained the upper hand and I pushed myself through.<br />
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On my sister’s play through it all went differently. She played a female character and hers was in love with Alistair. Morrigan, being in the group for a reason, still proposed the idea of the Dark Ritual but was declined by my sister. Instead, when it came to ram a sword through the dragon’s skull to put it down, an argument among those two characters broke out about who were to sacrifice himself.<br />
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Being madly in love, Alistair ignored my sister’s choice to end her own character’s life and so he did it himself.
I mean, wow. Two different outcomes, both extremely emotional and sad. I wonder if there is any luck to be had in getting a happy end.<br />
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Once the dragon went down, Bioware didn’t just show the credits and call it a day. That’s something Gothic 4 did and it really ruined an otherwise entertaining game. Dragon Age Origins lets you reap your rewards, given that you survive. For my Drölf I witnessed a nice ceremony and speech by then king Alistair (only if you play in a way where he becomes king and lives at the end). Afterwards you can have short chats with the remaining companions to collect your praise and ask about what they’ll do in the future. A nice touch is that when asked by Alistair what I’d do next I had the option to answer with “I’ll try to find Morrigan”. The game ends when you walk out the door of the ceremony hall to show yourself to the cheering folk as The Hero of Ferelden.<br />
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To finish things off, future development of the story’s main plot points and characters is told using short texts on beautifully rendered background images, e.g. that the dwarves fell back into a political cold war among themselves, Alistair was a loved king but he didn’t love being king, that the other group members went their separate ways and, through a ring Morrigan gave Drölf and I kept on my character, he could feel her and how she was sorry for how things had to end.<br />
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Still emotional, still sad. But wow, I care about something like that in this game where I did not in Diablo 3. Do you remember what happens shortly before the end? A young girl, Leah, finds her long lost mother through the help of the hero, only to be sacrificed by her witch-mother to become a vessel for the Lord of Darkness, Diablo. And no one cares about that when that ugly beast goes down.<br />
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With around 65 hours spent in the fantasy world of Ferelden, travelling with different companions and deciding on how to talk to them and with other people while having them around, I really formed an emotional connection where other games or movies or books failed. The fact that you play an active role in conversations instead of just doing the fighting makes the big difference. It also helps that the character development and relationships are very well designed and coherent throughout the whole game. It is all so real, all the while being just a game. In movies or books you are more or less a passive consumer and only a few were able to draw me in this far. Fringe is an example of a TV series and the Inheritance saga (Eragon) when it comes to books.<br />
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I haven’t really mentioned the gameplay but that doesn’t mean it does not deserve any credits. If it were bad, I don’t think I would have made it through to the end. As said at the very beginning, there’s an extensive skill tree for each class from which you can pick and choose to suit your preferred playing style. Unlike the other aforementioned RPGs, looting is not the biggest factor in this game. You’ll find a lot of gear and you’ll upgrade from time to time. But it’s not like you’ll find one mind blowing uber-monster-smasher after the other. Mostly you have to be content with what you have and use your group’s skills wisely instead. You can select from a range of offensive and defensive powers and even specialize in poison or trap making, or herbalism which enables you to brew your own health potions. Of course there are mages as well. That lot can heal or conjure up powerful firestorms, blizzards and the like. It’ll never get boring and if you don’t play on easy, you’ll really need those skills. I can’t tell you how satisfying it is to take out a group of enemies with a powerful mage by casting a few environmental catastrophes and just stand there and watch.<br />
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With Dragon Age Origins being a text book role playing game and not just some sort of action adventure, you will find a huge amount of side quests that help you amass experience to level up your party and also earn and find gold and loot with which you can finance new gear and crafting materials. All those side quest also help to maintain the illusion of this vast and living fantasy world. They tell random stories or sometimes tales of the past that are activated while you explore the world and find some item, note or a specific place. There is a lot to do and it is fun doing it.<br />
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I also played the expansion pack The Awakening. There you can import your character from the main game (or create a new one) and play another story that continues right where the first one ended. In this adventure you are the commander of the Grey Wardens that are trying to regroup, but are surprisingly attacked by remaining Darkspawn forces that, for whatever reason, didn’t flee when the Archdemon was defeated. I have met three characters from the main mission, and only one (the one I most disliked) can be part of your party.<br />
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The game still feels the same and plays the same, only with even more skills. But when you try to think yourself into your hero’s situation you become aware that somehow it is not the same. It is as I would imagine it would be after succeeding in such a big undertaking. Just as in real life, e.g. once you graduate from school, everybody moves on with their own lives and you’ll probably only see very few of your old mates again. That’s how the addon feels. It’s still very fun playing it, but again, after so much invested time I somehow became attached to my previous group and the new one couldn’t get near that experience in any way. The short encounters with King Alistair and Wynne simply mimic how life works. At some point all good things come to an end, even if they are as dreadful as a Blight.<br />
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The Awakening is not really necessary from a story perspective. It gives a little insight into what triggered the Blight, but as already mentioned, the character interactions are not as satisfying. Maybe it feels different if you don’t import a character (or have yours die by killing the Archdemon) and start fresh. I can’t really tell though if anything that happens in the expansion pack has any relevance in Dragon Age 2 or Dragon Age Inquisition.<br />
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Lucky for my character there is also a DLC called Witch Hunt which provides closure for all of those that chose to perform the Dark Ritual. If your character was in a love relationship with Morrigan they can be together or, if you just wanted to save your sorry ass, you can attack her for running with the child. I’m not sure how it goes if you refused the ritual. I guess I have to find out by playing the game at least one more time.<br />
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I hope I was able to convey what kind of an impact this game had on me. I really think it is a piece of art! It is a very well told story that takes place in a well crafted fantasy world and is combined with exciting character skills and game mechanics. This is a must-buy if you are into this kind of stuff.<br />
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If you are curious and understand German and English well enough, then you’re welcome to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/playlist?playnext=1&list=PL_FVOJyAFvFPTXkQKhK5RdU8vbeQUFPMx">watch me try to get a happy end in a second attempt</a> on the typical_nerd YouTube channel. I talk German (to spare anyone my English accent) and the game audio and text is in English, of course.
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-52362219231647036522013-09-29T11:03:00.001+02:002013-09-29T11:03:36.651+02:00BorderlandsThe last post about games dates back a while as I’ve ramped up the “Metalhead” part of Typical Nerd. Having visited <a href="http://www.gamescom.de/">Gamescom</a> this summer I’m currently very keen on playing (thanks to two weeks of vacation there was also plenty of time for that). This field report is about a shooter with some RPG elements, namely Borderlands. Shortly after Gamescom I finished the second version of this program in co-op, after playing through the first one a few months earlier. Read on to find out whether I liked it or not. <br />
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Well, I guess I spoiled that teaser by already admitting to having finished Borderlands 1 <strong>and</strong> 2. Anyway, here’s the story…<br />
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The idea to actually buy Borderlands 1 came from the fact that it offers playing the campaign in co-op. I bought the game with a friend but as of time restrictions, the bad experience for creating and hosting a game with friends over the internet and my move to the Mac platform somehow prevented from actually playing as intended. It took about a year until I got back to it. Diablo 3 started to get boring and I already had bought this one, so, why not give it another shot?<br />
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Since I’ve become a fan of comic art over the last few months (that is so dorky), the graphics style is just perfect for me: a first person shooter looking like a comic. The developers also managed to create some very unique characters and a weird sense of humor, again, totally tailored towards me. For example, some boss arenas can be entered on different ways and a sign will tell you that you can step in “either”, pointing to the left “or”, pointing to the right. <br />
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<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cl1BnBylkag">There’s even a mission</a> where, atop a brooding volcano, you decide whether you want to finish it by comitting suicide or push a button and call the suicide hotline - maybe <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1uwOL4rB-go">Achmed the Dead Terrorist</a> (timecode 7:00 - 7:45) would answer but I can’t tell since I jumped (much to the amusement of the main foe). Adding to that dark humor, once you approach the platform someone jumps into his doom right in front of your eyes, shouting he’ll be rich.<br />
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After picking your character you’re thrown into the dangerous world of Pandora in order to find a mystical vault that is said to only surface every 200 years and contain tons of treasures and alien tech. Since you are a treasure hunter you do as your name implies, i.e. hunt for the treasure - very much unlike this <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-20572775">dog</a> (that feeds tigers). A sort of guardian angel guides you on your quest to find this infamous vault in that it connects to you through, what it seems like, telepathy. <br />
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This guardian, a female, provides you with some background and ties all those loose ends together into a bigger picture. In Borderlands 1 this is a real necessity, otherwise you’d completely forget why you are running around and doing all those ugly jobs. Unfortunately, the way the story is told is like reading a comic without the pictures (in a game that looks like a comic). It is driven by characters you can meet but the majority of the side-quests, and you’ll probably spend a lot of time doing them, are retrieved from a bounty board and simply conveyed through text. This doesn’t allow for much sympathy for the characters and the world you’re playing in. <br />
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The first person you meet is Dr. Zed who runs a “clinic” and operates machines where you can buy medi-kits. This service is accompanied by a tiny hint that he’s obligated to tell you that he’s no real doctor and you really don’t care about that once you carry some bullets in you.<br />
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Typical introduction to the interesting characters in the game
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Apart from quests and a simple skill system Borderlands 1 is all about running through the wild and shooting whatever can’t hide fast enough on your way to the vault. This is all well and good as other equally straight forward shooters have already proven, but take all the weak parts and improve on them and there’s Borderlands 2. After killing that boss in the vault you find no treasures and alien tech and also no real satisfaction off of how the game leads you into the credits. This is where the sequel comes in.<br />
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Again, there’s yet another vault, this time with a very powerful old warrior. You are lured into finding this vault by a dude that calls himself Handsome Jack, the head of the Hyperion corporation. You know this name from Game 1- if you pay any attention to detail, at least - to be an arms factory known for the most powerful and accurate but also rare to find message force multipliers. And guess what happens after you follow the call for vault hunters? Jack tries to kill you by blowing up the train you’re in. As an analogy to Borderlands 1, the first thing you see is that annoying and ever-talking robot Claptrap. He’ll mention that you’re the first to survive the ambush and that’s where your tour of revenge starts. Of course, it is his tour of revenge as well because he was molested and tortured by Jack, and since he found you, he’ll call you his <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hbZ4y0hcE7o">minion</a> from now on to the very end of the game. No exception!<br />
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Even though that does not sound much better than what you already know from part one, the story really unravels the longer you play. There is real interaction with and among the main characters, either by directly talking to them or using some intercom system. The story is totally driven by very frequent chats of all the characters, good and bad, with each other or just with you, discussing details about a mission or a brief look into the history of how Handsome Jack actually came to be. I’m not gonna spoil the details of the story, it is that well told! Expect some interesting twists and turns.<br />
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The language used is very colloquial and littered with insults and swearwords. In part one, towards the end of the game, the mission journal calls a female NPC a bitch for tricking you and Handsome Jack frequently calls you a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xfoxn8aJjuk">jackass</a> among other things. This makes the world feel very authentic. It is set in some kind of post-apocalyptic environment, just like in the Mad Max movies, so it has to be dirty and feel lawless. Thus the world is littered with ugly monsters, very ugly monsters, very ugly annoying monsters and the same goes for human like cannon fodder. Part 2 even introduces augmented enemies which are called “Badass” who are a tough people. Actually, a lot in this game is called Badass. There are Badass ranks you can unlock by doing some feats like killing a certain amount of a specific kind of enemy and you can use those ranks to increase your skill. Pretty badass!<br />
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As a neat bonus, all the characters of the first Borderlands play their own part in Borderlands 2. You’ll even revisit the town Fyrestone which is the starting point in Game 1. The latter was a big boost to motivation. At that point you’ve probably played around 30 hours of running around and gathering stuff for people or killing people for some obscure reason, that the game started to drag along. But seeing parts of the first game again, only changed to fit the story, sparked the flame once more. Most of the missions consist of running (or driving for that matter) to different places of the map and collect items to install them somewhere in order to trigger something even bigger. Part two is much more creative in hiding those “from A to B to C and back to A” missions behind elements like a clan war where you basically fight on both sides, without any party noticing that, fueling the hate, until the final showdown. You’ll also meet a robot that feels like he is human and therefore you set out to collect human body parts in his hope to strip himself from his destructive robotic nature. Do I need to mention that he’ll still try to kill you?<br />
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One thing the developers also have been very creative with is finding ways to set obstacles in your path. Many times you think you’ve reached the mission goal, there’s just one button to push, just one door to open or just one item to fetch but in reality this is just a hoax. In order to accomplish your goal you need to go somewhere else first and do something there to fix it. Even though it is very well embedded in the story and the playing time makes the game worth its money, at some point it feels quite annoying. It goes something like this: “Hey, I’ve found a way to get into that immensly guarded station. Just go to a pipe, push a button and climb in”. Well, once you’re at the pipe, the button, of course, does not work - soooo many times! It’ll continue like so: “Dammit! Allright, there are a few stations where you need to push some other button to increase the preasure in order to destabilize the pipe”. You go to those stations, shoot a lot of crap, push the buttons and get back to the pipe. This is actually a fun conclusion to the detour: “Now hit the pipe hard, best use your car”. Well, you do as you were told, find some space to gather momentum and then crash into the pipe at full speed. But that is basically all there is to complain about Borderlands 2.<br />
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As already mentioned, Borderlands 1 lacks much of the compelling story telling. On top of that you’ll see very frequent respawns of enemies in areas you’ve carefully cleansed before. And wiping all this junk off the earth sometimes is a chore. Time and again you’ll face a ton of ugly, annoying beasts that not only waste time and ammo but don’t contribute to the story in any way. This is hugely improved in part 2. There are respawns as well and sometimes groups of enemies, but very well balanced. Once an area is clear, the second time you visit it is much easier. Borderlands 1 doesn’t care too much about that.<br />
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Is Borderlands 1 a bad game for that? No! It is a lot of fun, especially if you’re playing in co-op (up to four people). And even though you don’t need to have played it to enjoy Borderlands 2, the sequel is much more fun and enjoyable for all the references that are in the game if you did. If you ask me, which is what you implicitly did reading all those lines, get them both, for you and your friends and reserve a week of time to plough through ’em. Have I mentioned that you’ll even find guns that’ll <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rpi4jU_hV0U">talk</a> and even <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbxycdeNZQg">insult</a> you?Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-88906777361137879682013-05-19T22:58:00.002+02:002013-06-01T13:57:02.100+02:00Torchlight 2When I first wrote about Diablo 3 I subtitled the article with: “Or how to lose track of time”. If I wanted to do the same for Torchlight 2 it would probably be: “Or how to lose track of what’s going on on the screen”.<br />
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The first Torchlight was an entertaining game despite being very simple on the story side of things. The slightly exaggerated comic style graphics and colorful yet dark dungeons created an immersive atmosphere which kept me motivated. The only drawback: there was no co-op. In fact, there wasn’t a multiplayer mode at all.<br />
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If you’ve read my Diablo 2 posts you can probably imagine how delighted I was when I read the anouncement about a sequel and in particular that this sequel would feature a multiplayer co-op mode. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. However, once it it was released I was still into Diablo 3 and only had my iMac for gaming - there was no OS X version of Torchlight 2. So it took some time until I finally got hold of a digital copy of the game (for Windows on <a href="http://typicalnerd.blogspot.de/2013/03/project-htpc.html">this machine</a>) but here I am presenting my verdict on it.<br />
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One thing that really pops out after just 10 minutes of gameplay is the speed at which level ups occur. My character is somewhere around level 40 and my guess is that I’ve roughly finished 2/3 of the game. That is unusually fast progress. In addition to that it is very easy to find or even buy sets of gear. Where Diablo 3 makes it unnecessarily difficult (still no luck) Torchlight 2 seems to make it a bit too easy. <br />
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Secondly, the speed at which one runs through the world is amazing. Due to the increased size of the maps this is kind of necessary but in the long run it somehow detaches me from the game. To me it feels like ploughing through the terrain as fast as possible as if to finish this ordeal and be done with it. The way the story is told only adds to that. There are short movies which are neatly done but the main context is delivered through text, of which not every conversation is available as spoken audio. And again, this presentation just adds to the feeling of this being something I have to work through rather than being able to enjoy it.<br />
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Torchlight 2 is about quick action not big talking and quick action it delivers. I haven’t yet played it much alone so most of the following is based on multiplayer experience. The first few hours are actually very entertaining but the more the game progresses the more powerful skills you learn. I make that sound like a bad thing, right? Well, it somehow is. The skills and their visual effects are nice. However, at a certain point not only you as a player (including the ones your are co-oping with) but also those jerks with an attitude towards you start pulling off tricks of magic. Since there are seldomly only two or three enemies attacking, you (or one of your peers) select a skill that targets a big area in order to hurt or destroy as many foes as possible. Now this is where the fun ends. As visually appealing as this is it completely clutters the screen and makes it impossible to fathom who did what from where. In those big fights I always ask myself: “Where the hell is my character and that stupid cursor so I can reorientate myself?” This is very frustrating and, as mentioned before, makes it seem like work you don’t like.<br />
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This is a big dealbreaker. The fights are just chaos. In those situations I use a rapid fire skill, push the Shift key and perform 360’s until the bad guys are gone. I don’t know what I’m shooting at I just want it to go away. Another thing I don’t like is shopping (I’m a man after all…). Seriously, it is nice that two items can be compared by hovering over something in your inventory or a store and it automatically shows the traits of each item side by side. Unfortunately this is done in a rather unpleasent way. It’s like a blinking ad on a website that just cries for attention. The attributes are shown in huge different-sized boxes placed randomly on the screen. Diablo 3 did that much better. And as a bonus the Blizzard implementation shows whether this is an up- or downgrade.<br />
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So is it all bad? No! It is an entertaining game without any depth. If it were a shooter you’d compare it to Serious Sam. The boss fights are very engaging and in this regard I’d say Torchlight beats Diablo. A boss really takes beating like a boss and unless the visual effects and number of enemies cover all of the screen the action is intense and exciting. Still, if sticking to the shooter comparison, Serious Sam offers a better overview over all that’s happening - and I’ve already heard a pretty good Quake 3 player say: „I never had to run backwards that much in a game before“.<br />
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I had high hopes for Torchlight 2, especially since Diablo 3 was sucked dry from too much playing. Although the start of the game with the quick level ups and early finds of special gear like sets encourages to continue playing, the later stages of the game lose their feel to all the mayhem that is happening on the screen. The more narrow levels of the predecessor, which are rare in v2, had more appeal to the game as a whole. But maybe the single player is able to deliver equal fun as Torchlight 1 did without other players wreaking havoc.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-40145855137459182772012-10-26T21:15:00.001+02:002013-06-01T11:01:55.848+02:00Diablo 3 Still Rocks!If you’ve read my last post about Diablo 3 you may remember that I kinda liked it. Well, I still do. In fact, I like it so much that this ugly red bastard has already come to die three times at my sisters and mine combined hands. And for the record: her character finally died, too. Lot’s of times! Mine also, of course, so there’s no reason for me to gloat, but I’m amused still.<br />
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Anyone that knows the game recognizes that having killed Diablo three times means we’re now fighting through the last difficulty: <strong>Inferno</strong>. That is a lot of time spent running through the same exact story, basically the same levels and always beating the same ugly bosses. It is kind of interesting how such a simple game-plan can be so immersive. Most veterans would probably say it’s all about the looting but in this very regard Diablo 3 fell short. <br />
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For most part of the last third of <em>Nightmare</em> and almost all through <em>Hell</em> the items we found have been very disapointing. In fact, two people finishing the game three times yielded only three (crappy) legendary items, no sets (!!! not a single piece) and a smith that is as worthless as Windows Vista turned out to be and Windows 8 is likely to become (why is that guy actually in there?).<br />
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However, with the most recent updates and especially <em>Nephalem Valor</em> this changed (no legendary or sets still, though). The rate at which rare items now drop is just amazing. Some even proved to be useful - no joke, we finally found updates after that very long drought. The thought of having to mention this, however, is a little bit pathetic.<br />
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Before, it was very hard to find something that improved the character in just one category without being a major downgrade in the others. Now we actually find things that improve our virtual hero in every aspect. It’s getting more fun again. I can’t tell you how happy I was when I found a new weapon that suddenly increased my damage about 4000 points without reducing armor or vitality. That’s like finding the BFG in Quake 3! <strong>Killing Spree</strong><br />
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And believe me, these upgrades are more and more necessary. Not only are those evil dudes absorbing more damage but some may also kill you so fast it would make Chuck Norris proud. One fierce hit and you’re done. Roundhouse Kick and dead. If those brutes could actually talk they’d probably crack jokes about them being able to drown fishes. As it happens, around every second or third corner there’s a trio or even a quartet of champions with some nasty large area attacks. Sometimes we’re just so busy running away that in the end we attract so much attention on trying to survive that it’s actually for the worse. In some masochistic way this is fun… The reward is then beating those show-offs and teasing one another about who died how often during the skirmish and who survived (and making foul comments on those virtual scumbags). In a lot of cases you’re even immediately dead as soon as you rejoin the battle after dying. Clicking the banner of your companion may transport you right into the heart of a fierce fight amidst all the foes striking a blow. Somehow (still in a masochistic way) this is hilarious. <br />
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Most groups are even more challenging than the bosses which is strange. More often than not a boss fight takes place in a rather large area where you can concentrate on one mean dude instead of a group surrounded by the average monsters that are there as well. But that’s what keeps the level of motivation high for playing the same levels over and over again. The bosses are just there for the story’s sake.<br />
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One thing of note: When facing Belial on <em>Hell</em> we for the first time were actually forced to think about some sort of <em>strategy</em>. That not-so-lovely-creature bested us two or three times while we were using skills that worked great when fighting through the levels. I never thought this possible. Up until this time we were using one particular set of offensive and defensive skills throughout the whole game. That lying green dude made us <strong>think</strong> (in a hack-and-slay!) how to approach the subject. As you can see, we did it with success and in the end it was very rewarding! However, I can’t say I’m looking forward to facing him again… But have no fear, his death is us dear. <br />
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In case you’re interested here are the characters involved:<br />
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<li><a href="http://eu.battle.net/d3/de/profile/drunkonpain-2753/hero/15495034">My Demonhunter</a></li>
<li><a href="http://eu.battle.net/d3/de/profile/ZornigerRatz-2640/hero/15422245">My sister’s monk</a></li>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-709066543711395762.post-65789304665919071762012-07-11T19:21:00.002+02:002013-06-01T10:57:50.124+02:00Diablo 3 rocks!Or: How to loose track of time<br />
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I have played the very first Diablo with a friend connected in a network (unfortunately we didn't finish it), its successor including the add-on, once again with friends and this time finished it - multiple times - and now Diablo 3 hit the shelves. And guess what; it made me buy a new computer much earlier than actually planned - but have no fear, it wasn't a Windows PC.<br />
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I tried how it would run on my MacBook Pro using one of the Starter Edition Keys from a colleague of mine and it was actually playable. Since it was the smallest edition of the early 2011 lineup its estimated performance in the game wasn't that high. But that was one thing I could have lived with. Low graphics quality isn't the worst problem, and the difference between low and high isn't that much in this game. However, one would've need to be accustomed to air plane noise or something similar because the notebook was pumping air as if its life depended on it - which it actually did; the CPU temp hit 85°! That made me buy an iMac way before Apple announced updates. Can you imagine that all the 27" models are sold out at our local dealers?<br />
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But this is about the game, not the hardware. As said, I have played version 1 and 2 and liked them both. Each with its own feel but always true to the same facts: Hack, Slay, Loot, Skill. And Diablo 3 is no different but still feels a bit different. This is due to the way the story is told. It's much more engaging to actually consume it. There are great videos, some in a rather abstract comic style and some with very realistic graphics. I like! Just recently, I was playing with my sister talking over Skype - I don't even need a headset with the iMac, it's all built in; I like! - and we just finished the 2nd act, starting into the 3rd and found ourselves in a very realistic - as realistic as fantasy can get - scenario where we're in a big castle which is attacked by some ugly looking foe that could be a relative to Duriel. That was just pure adrenaline, fending off those ugly monsters, rushing from spot to spot while performing some deeds to strengthen the defense and raise the spirit of the helping garrison. Just like the "Omaha Beach" mission of Medal of Honor: Allied Assault. War everywhere. <strike>Bullets</strike>, excuse me, fire-arrows flying everywhere. One could see the ongoing assault down below from the castle walls. Sometimes huge worm-like... things... would just crash on the edge of a wall, wreck some havoc and throw up more enemies - kind of a modern/fantasy siege tower. It was just so very intense, something Diablo 1 and 2 could not deliver. I like!<br />
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I'm very curious how this continues. I just hope that sometimes my sister's character dies when fighting bosses, not just always me being dead suddenly after beating the hell out of the boss, that dude turns around, makes a mean face and *bam*. It's like being roundhouse kicked by Chuck Norris. And very annoying: after reviving my character I can't return to the fight because a boss fight is in progress and the area can't be entered. I not like! But that's the only thing up until now.<br />
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Another thing I like about this game: It has a Mac client right from day one! Thanks Blizzard!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01982537049184466055noreply@blogger.com