Drunken Gamer Journal: Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary

Halo: Combat Evolved: Anniversary: Turbo Hyper Edition: Director's Cut 2011 is a rerelease of Halo by 343 Industries (originally by Bungie). The update isn't bad on the campaign side, but I am disappointed by the fact that they only had a certain amount of multiplayer maps, and that they put them on the Halo Reach engine, ya know, because 343 assumed Halo Reach was the greatest Halo of all time ever. I would say that would lie on Halo 3, considering how many hours I sunk into that game, and how much fun I had with it. I know others would say Halo 2, and I wouldn't disagree. The little Halo 2 I played online was pretty damn fun. Additionally, I have a little experience with the original Halo....I only played the campaign on the version I downloaded via Xbox Live Arcade. In comparison between the 2 games, the graphics look amazing on the update, making dark areas brighter, fancier, and stuff. I only had 2 problems though; my first problem was that my Xbox froze in the middle of Truth and Reconciliation on my first play through, and it forced me to replay everything to that point because it didn't save a damn thing. Secondly, the snow was a little too good, and in order to see clearly on a level like Assault on the Control Room, I felt the need to switch to the old graphics to see clearly. Beyond that though, like I said, on the campaign side, great update. Especially for a game that was 40 bucks. (Thanks 343 for making it cheaper than most games, that was not worth than 60 bucks)

And that leads me to my next drunken story, which, oddly enough, I wasn't drunk for. I think this happened about a week or so ago. I was playing the level Truth and Reconciliation (I have no luck with this level, I swear) with a friend of mine over Xbox Live, and he was pretty schlammered. Sure we made it through the first couple levels ok, but he passed out midway through the level, leaving me behind to finish it. I kept shouting his name into the mic, with no answer. I forget exactly how long it took me to finish, but it was a good chunk of time. Come to find out, he doesn't remember even playing the level, and he woke up with no pants at his buddies house (which he was playing at to begin with).

GamersGate

Along with steam GamersGate is having a ton of sales too. Really there are too many to mention (over 400 items on sale) so I will just link you to GamersGate so you can look for a game you've always wanted and see if it's on sale. Most of their sales are about the same as Steam's so it's really a matter of which retailer you like more.

Steam Sales: November 25th

Today we have Dead Island, a free roaming zombie apocalypse sort of game. I'm surprised this hasn't been thought of sooner but I wasn't too impressed with it. The best thing is that it's multiplayer and you can run around and do zombie shooting quests with your friends.

Dead Island - $19.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/91310/

We also have Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. This is a Star Wars RPG with an amazing story. The game is a little older but it is by far one of my favorites. It's also a good game to pick up while you're waiting for the Old Republic to come out.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic - $4.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/32370/?snr=1_4_4__617

Then there's Patrician 4. Personally I love the Patrician series. It's an economy game set in Scandinavia near medieval times. I really am a sucker for economy games though so this may not be your cup of tea. Steam has their own special edition and the Gold edition is on sale as well.

Patrician IV Steam Special Edition - $6.79
http://store.steampowered.com/app/57620/?snr=1_4_4__617
Patrician IV Gold (Includes Rise of a Dynasty expansion) - $10.19
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/11830/

There are also a couple of games I've heard good things about but never really got the chance to play:

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - $24.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/28050/

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine - $33.49
http://store.steampowered.com/app/55150/

Sanctum - $2.49
http://store.steampowered.com/app/91600/?snr=1_4_4__617

Grand Theft Auto Complete Package (I've only ever played GTA2) - $12.49
http://store.steampowered.com/sale/2011_pre_GTA_fran?snr=1_4_4__617

Steam Sale: November 24

Today there are some great sales going on on steam...

There's Rift, an mmorpg. Rift plays a lot like wow if you've played that before but the class system is completely different. You have 8 unlockable skill trees and you can mix and match them to create whatever you want. There are also public quests/raids which are pretty fun.

Rift - $7.49 (plus $15/month subscription fee)
http://store.steampowered.com/app/39120/?snr=1_4_4__617

Fallout: New Vegas is also on sale today. Fallout is a post apocalyptic free roaming RPG. Although it's an Rpg it's also a first/third person shooter. The mechanics work well and the gameplay is fantastic. It's one of those games you can play for hours upon hours. Personally New Vegas is my favorite Fallout game.

Fallout: New Vegas - $4.99
http://store.steampowered.com/app/22380/
(I would say this is the best buy out of all of these games)

We also have the Total War mega pack. It includes Rome: Total War + Alexander, Medieval II: Total War + Kingdoms, Empire: Total War, Napoleon: Total War, and all the DLC for the last 2. It's a huge pack that includes a lot of games. The Total War series is sort of 2 games in one for each title. On one hand you have the campaign mode which is managing your empire and it's economy, troop placement, etc. and on the other hand you have the battles which the series is famous for. The battles are massive and can have thousands of troops on the field at once. A great series in my opinion.

Total War Mega Pack - $12.49
http://store.steampowered.com/sub/11657/?snr=1_4_4__617

Finally on my list is VVVVVV. It's a silly title but the game is pretty silly too. It's a simple puzzle game which requires you to switch gravity either up or down in order to get past obstacles. It's a fun enough game but for $1.24 I have to recommend it.

VVVVVV - $1.24
http://store.steampowered.com/app/70300/?snr=1_4_4__617

Steam: Thanksgiving sales

Steam is having some great sales that will be going on from now until Sunday (the 27th) if you want to check them out they're on the main page at http://store.steampowered.com/.

I would recommend Mass Effext 1+2 (http://store.steampowered.com/sale/2011_thanks_masseffect_page) and Portal 2 (http://store.steampowered.com/app/620/)

There are also some other good games on there worth checking out but those are 2 that I thought definitely worth it.

Budget Gaming: Sim Game Bundles

 The X Series

All the X games are on sale on gamers gate for the next 2 weeks or so. As far as I know these games are all great. I've heard great things about the series as a whole and I've played X3: Terran Conflict and it was amazing.

The X series of games are space sim games. Basically you start out as a lowly starship pilot and you can do a bunch of things to build your name. You can be a trader, a pirate, a policeman, etc. Eventually if you get enough capital you can buy entire stations and fleets. If you've ever played freelancer think of the X series like that only in a much larger scale. The only problem is that with a scale as large as this there is also a steep learning curve. It's worth it if you ask me.

You can buy them each separate or you can buy the X superbox for $20 which is naturally the best deal. Otherwise, if you buy them all separately it will set you back about $25-$30 or so. I recommend getting at least X3: gold for $14.50

X3: Gold - $14.50

X Superbox - $20

The Guild

The Guild is a medieval life sim I guess... Truth be told it's more of an economy sim with life elements thrown in. I have played The Guild 2 and its expansion, Renaissance, and I liked them both a lot. There is also the first in the series and the second expansion to The Guild 2 (Venice).

I really liked the game it was really fun. I'm a sucker for economy games to be honest and in The Guild 2 you start as a lowly family name with nothing but a shop or 2 and a house to call your own. You slowly gain both financial and political power and can become the mayor of a city as well as a powerhouse tycoon.

If you're into this kind of game I recommend at least The Guild 2 Platinum $7.98. Otherwise you can get The Guild Complete, which includes the first game of the series for $10.20. They're on sale for the next 5 days.

The Guild 2 Platinum - $7.98

The Guild Complete - $10.20

Stay tuned tomorrow for Steams midweek madness sales. We'll see if there's anything interesting.

Budget Gaming: Neverwinter Nights Complete

Neverwinter Nights Complete on sale now on GamersGate for $20! Neverwinter Nights is an amazing rpg series that takes place in the Forgotten Realms world (R.A. Salvatore) and it uses dungeons and dragons rules for the gameplay. I have Neverwinter Nights Platinum and have never played Neverwinter Nights 2 but I've heard good things about it, such as it's only an improvement on Neverwinter Nights 1.

This includes both Neverwinter Nights 1+2 plus all the expansions for each. So it's basically 8 great games for $20. Doesn't get much better than that...

Budget Gaming: Bastion, Now even Budgetier!

 

Just an update on Bastion; it's even cheaper now and for the next 3 days on GamersGate. At $15 it was well worth it but at $7.50 it's a steal!

My only problem is that the soundtrack edition is still $25. The soundtrack is amazing though so if you feel like shelling out an extra bit of cash it's most definitely worth it.

If you want you can look at my first impressions of the game here.

Budget Gaming: Oblivion

If you aren't too busy playing skyrim (because you're poor like me) or you don't already have it (shame on you) Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion is on sale on steam for $5 for the GOTY edition and $6.25 for the deluxe GOTY edition which includes even more dlc. 

If you don't know what Elder Scrolls is then you should probably play more computer games...

It's an open world rpg set in a fantasy world. It's very open ended in that you can play however you want. You can play a power hungry mage , a righteous knight, or whatever you want really. Bethesda (the company that makes this) has a really good track record for open world rpgs such as Fallout and Elder Scrolls. I highly recommend getting this if you don't already have it.

The sale is only until  about 7pm EST 11/17
http://store.steampowered.com/app/22330/

Budget Gaming: Making History Gold

Making history is a turn based grand strategy game. Grand strategy games are basically just strategy games that cover large areas and focus more on managing the nation than battles (i.e. - building armies, managing an economy, diplomacy, etc.)

I'm a fan of grand strategy games but they're not really everyone's cup of tea so to say.

Making History takes place during the mid 1900s. The scenarios it comes with are all pretty interesting. While they all have events that allow you to play historically you don't really have to. There's also a pretty good community out there (although it's better for Making History 2, but that's not budget). It's also fairly easy to learn how to make your own scenarios. All you have to do is go into the game files and edit a few lines of text.

The economy is in depth and well thought out but the combat is just alright. I wish your units would retreat instead of get destroyed but it's all right.

I recommend it if you're into those kind of strategy games. It's only $10 on GamersGate so its not too bad and you could possibly get hours of entertainment. (I would give you some screenshots but for some reason they just show up blank)

Drunken Gamer Journal: Minecraft

Holy shit, I'm writing about a PC game (one of the very few I own, aside from the entire Unreal franchise on PC). (Also, I can't sleep, so I'm writing this now.) Anywho, I recently got into this game....like last week or so. I played solo for a wee bit, but after the 1.8 update came out, I started playing multiplayer on my buddy's server. Over this passed weekend, (Friday, I think), I got a little drunk from Goldschlager and Coke.....it was all I had. Needless to say, since I am posting, some shenanigans occurred. I built a tree hotel earlier in the week....it looks like a giant tree on the outside, multiple floors with beds on the inside, with somewhat of a leafy balcony, some of which leads to a tiny room at the top. My tree hotel was located in a forest.....and I decided to have a campfire....with some Netherrack. For those unfamiliar, it's a block that will burn forever. Well that caused some problems.....namely a forest fire. Smokey the Bear would not have been proud of me. It took 3 of us to put out the blaze with buckets of water (we were using creative mode, so that helped)....and then we had to find all the water sources and delete them again. I spent the remainder of the night rebuilding.....the leaves won't ever look the same. All I wanted was a campfire. Just one campfire.

Minecraft beta 1.8.1 is out now on direct download from http://www.minecraft.net/ , for $21.95. The full version should be out in November for about $25, and an Xbox 360 version is also planned. (Which I also think will be a November release, but don't quote me.) I mean, there probably are ways to get it for free, but I wouldn't. These dudes deserve the money for such an awesome, yet simple game.

Edit: Had the wrong full game price estimate.

Budget Gaming: Civ 5

If you're one of the 7 people who have never heard of civilization it's a turn based strategy franchise in which you build an empire from scratch and try to make that nation the most powerful in the world.

Civ 5 is the weekend deal on Steam this weekend, on sale for $12.50:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8930/

Civilization 5 is the latest in the series that started way back in the 90s. On it's own it is certainly an amazing game but when you compare it to other games in the series it turns into just a good game.

Deciding what to produce

Civ5 tries out so many new features to Civilization and a lot of them are great. It has hex tiles instead of the normal square tiles; you can no longer stack multiple units on top of each other; they made ranged units actually be ranged (i.e. they actually do damage from one or 2 tiles away); they added an in-game mod browser for people to find and release mods; and a sort of skill tree for your civilization that they call Social Policies. However some of the choices they made for Civ5 disappoint me. These choices being mainly the decision to charge for dlc that people could make and release on their own for free and getting rid of the corporations/religions from Civ4.

Civ5 is certainly a good Civ game, but then again I can't think of a bad one (I haven't played Civ3 so I could be wrong). I would place Civ5 near the bottom ranks of Civ games though. Again, don't get me wrong, it's an amazing game in it's own right. However, Compared to Civ4 (certainly the best in my opinion) it doesn't quite make the cut. I can still get lost in playing the game and accidentally stay up until 5am trying to conquer the world but it just isn't the same.

Social Policies

There are quite a few good changes to the series that (if they make more games) I hope go into the next game. The Social Policies system is one of these changes. It's a sort of skill tree for your civilization. There are 8 different policy trees to adopt and adopting some will lock others. These policies range from economic to social and provide benefits to your civilization. The benefits all fit into a certain playstyle. For example, there are a lot of policies that would augment a militaristic empire by giving extra production towards military units and giving units more experience from combat. In my opinion these policies add a lot to the depth of the game and can make every time you play a game a little bit different.

Now onto the things I don't like...

For one it's missing religions. The religions in Civ4 were amazing and added real depth to the game. They were an important tool in diplomacy and could often help you win an early victory. I remember I once won a game of Civ4 before even getting out of the Classical Age because all I did was convert everyone to my religion and made them my friend and I won a diplomatic victory. While you may say "That sounds way too easy! I want a challenge." it was a challenge! Converting everyone to my religion took a lot of my resources and instead of creating useful buildings in my cities I was stuck making missionaries. Of course I made it easy on myself by making the world a Pangea world (a world with only one continent). These kind of memorable moments are gone from Civ5.

Something else that peeves me about this installment is the fact that they charge for Civilizations and maps. They don't even find community members to make new and interesting mods to sell them and give them a part of the profits. To me it seems like a bit of money grubbing on their part to sell content that users could make themselves with the extensive modding tools that Civilization is famous for. Civilization has always been a great place for modders to make a name for themselves because it's relatively easy to create a mod and get it out there. With the Mod browser it makes it easier to find great mods.

Belgrade, a city-state surrounded by my empire.

Something I am indifferent about are City-states. These are independent Civilizations that can give you bonuses if you befriend them. The reason I'm indifferent about them is because they really don't add enough to the game to be fun or interesting. There are different types that give you either a military unit every so often, food, or culture. You have to spend gold to befriend them and your reputation with them slowly deteriorates so you have to constantly do it. I would be fine without them but I also don't mind them being in my worlds (you can turn them off if you so desire).

TL;DR

Civ5 is certainly a good game. It's got a few new things to Civilization including hex tiles instead of square, social policies (a sort of talent tree for your civ, which I really like), no more unit stacking, mod browser, etc. However, it changed a few things about the series that I feel are for the worse including charging for DLC that could be made by users, and getting rid of the religions and corporations from Civ4. The city-states that were added into the game really don't add enough to the game to be fun or interesting. It's a great game and I would recommend it but for the hardcore Civilization fan I might recommend staying with Civ4. But then again this is 75% off for the weekend so at $12.50 why not pick it up?

Old School Games: Kohan and Kohan 2

The Kohan series has been released on steam a couple a days ago and I got the "Warchest" which is all three of the Kohan games for $18 until August 31st. (Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns, Kohan:Ahriman's Gift, and Kohan II. Separately they are $9 each). TL;DR at the bottom as always. Screenshots are of Kohan II because I couldn't get it to take screenshots of the other games.

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/11141/?snr=1_4_4__106_2

Kohan is a real time strategy game that focuses on macro (general strategy) as opposed to micro (detailed unit control). It's an older game but that doesn't mean it's not worth your time. When it came out it was doing something very different with its style and people received it well. It is heavy on strategy and light on resource management and economy. The unit formations do useful things (like change the speed and combat effectiveness of units), the terrain affects your strategy, and many other interesting features. I wanted it back when it came out but couldn't get my hands on it. When I saw it on steam I grabbed it quick and played a few solid hours of each of the games.

The Kohan series has a unique resource management system in which you don't gather the resources. You construct buildings that produce a certain amount of a resource (There is gold, stone, wood, iron, and mana). These buildings also allow different units to be recruited in the city they are built. So you don't have an amount of each resource (except gold) just an income. So a lumbermill will produce 5 wood and a unit of archers would have an upkeep of 3 wood and you would end up with +2 wood. When a resource is in the negative the only thing it affects is your gold income. Gold is the only resource that can be stockpiled and therefor it is the most important. It's a different resource management system than most RTS's but it's not bad. It allows players to focus more on the combat and military strategy rather than protecting workers and gathering resources.

The units in the game are squad based in a sense. There are 4 "frontline" units which head into combat first. There are also two separate slots for support units. These support units can be powerful mages or clerics. Often times they have a unique ability. There's also a "captain" slot for the squad which is filled automatically by a default captain unit unless you choose to place a hero in it. The second game adds 2 extra unit slots to a squad. Each squad is completely customizable because you can choose what unit goes in each of these slots. There are also several different factions and they each produce different units and have different benefits.

The strategy is more in depth and complicated in the first game and expansion. The tutorial will make it seem more complicated than it actually is by explaining all the different zones which you really don't need to pay too much attention to. The cities in the first games are just static and only change in appearance when you upgrade them (they look bigger). The graphics aren't fantastic but that's because it was released 10 years ago.

Kohan 2 is slightly simplified. I don't want you to confuse simplified with dumbed down though because they just removed much of the unnecessary things from Kohan that bogged down the game. It still has the same focus on strategy without all of the slow base building and resource gathering. The big thing about Kohan 2 is the upgraded graphics. It really does help the gameplay to be honest. This one is 3D and much prettier. The buildings you construct in your city actually show up there, your mages are throwing fireballs at the enemy, and a lot of other cool graphics that couldn't be done in 2D.

The cities in Kohan 2 are actually very different. As soon as you upgrade them the first time they get walls. Within these walls your buildings are built and your militia defend the city. Your cities can also be besieged and will lose their supply zone along with becoming unable to recruit new units or build buildings. To take the city you have to nearly destroy the town center. Just like in the first games, capturing a city from a different faction will allow you to recruit that factions units. This adds more depth to the strategy that was already pretty deep to begin with.

While both games didn't have a particularly strong story for the single player portion the story in the first was certainly told in a better way (I actually don't know how active the multiplayer community is because I always get crushed in RTS multiplayer so I just don't do it). For the first there would be dialogue throughout the different missions and the voice over wasn't too bad and the story itself was also well written. The second game, however, did not have a good story at all. The in game cinematics were boring and coupled with pretty bad voice acting. Not to mention you would only see these cinematics at the beginning and end of a mission so you would completely forget about the story during that mission. The story itself was boring and unoriginal but then add the bad dialogue and it was practically unbearable. But the gameplay was still very solid as long as you skip the cutscenes.

Overall I liked Kohan 2 better than the first game and it's expansion. This doesn't mean it's the better game it just means that it's better for me. Kohan 1 had old school graphics (which appeal to many people) and a very in depth and complicated systems that augmented the strategy of the game. Kohan 2 had better graphics and a slightly simpler strategy component while still focusing on general strategy. Unfortunately the story for the single player campaign was very lackluster and I couldn't get into it. They were both great games and I would recommend the warchest if you're into real-time strategy games.

TL;DR

The Kohan series is certainly older but it is a good series. It focuses on general strategy as opposed to resource management unlike most real-time strategies. You actually don't even stockpile any of the five resources except gold. Kohan: Immortal Sovereigns and it's expansion were more old school and had a better story while Kohan 2 was prettier and had a crap story. Both games are really good in their own right and I recommend the warchest if you are into RTS games.

Budget Gaming: Borderlands

http://store.steampowered.com/app/8980/

Borderlands is an rpg fps done very well. The game of the year edition is $7.50 on steam for the weekend ($5 for the regular version but then $7.50 for the dlc which you get with the goty edition). I highly recommend it. It also has multiplayer so you can play with your friends!

For multiplayer I recommend using hamachi or tunngle because Gamespy Arcade is garbage. Also be warned that there are a few bugs on the PC version but nothing serious. A crash here and there maybe but not really gamebreaking because the game has an autosave feature that saves pretty often.

The gunplay is wicked fun and the class system isn't too restricting. There is a huge variety of weapons too. You can get revolvers, assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers that launch like 5 rockets at once, etc.

Just have to wait for Borderlands 2 now. =D

Warhammer 40k: Space Marine

I'm just gonna leave this there...
(There is plenty of violence just letting you know)

Gamescom things that excited me

So gamescom just happened. I watched a few videos that people uploaded to youtube and there are a few things that really got me excited (watch Totalbiscuit's coverage of gamescom please. it was amazing http://www.youtube.com/user/TotalHalibut).

First of all there was a lot of stuff from Star Wars: The Old Republic, Bioware's new MMO coming "Holiday 2011". They released a new warzone (pvp) called Huttball. Basically deadly football with lightsabers and blasters. TB also played through a bit of early level content alone and a bit with Stephen Reid from bioware. Bioware also showed off a bit of their raid (or operation as they call it) called eternity vault. I've been very excited about this game since I heard about it in 2008 and just keep getting more excited for it. Huttball Trailer


There was also Guild Wars 2 demos that I saw. Guild Wars 2 is the sequal to the popular Guild Wars by NCsoft and Arenanet. Now at first I wasn't too excited for this game because I wasn't a huge fan of the first one. I still liked it but it never really held my interest long enough. After seeing the videos coming out of gamescom, however, I am thoroughly excited for this game. There's dynamic combat, dynamic content, no subscription fee. It's going to be a big player in the MMO market and is certainly poised to take a hefty chunk out of WoW's subscriber base. But then again you could always play both because Guild Wars has no subscription, but we all know how much time MMOs suck up. TotalBiscuit plays a little GW2

A game that really excited me is Firefall. Now I've never heard of this game before but after seeing videos of it being played and hearing more about it from the developers this game seems like it has a lot of potential. It's a first or third person class based shooter with MMO elements to it made by a company called Red 5 Studios. It has an open world that you can roam around doing things in. You can find new weapons and whatnot in the open world. The real focus of the game, however, is the PvP element. From what was shown I definitely think I will try this out. TotalBiscuit interviews David Williams, lead class designer, about Firefall

 This next game I heard about early and sort of followed it but then forgot about it. It's a new MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena, game in the style of DotA, LoL, HoN, etc.) and it's called Smite. It's made by Hi-Rez studios, the people who made Global Agenda and Tribes. I really liked the other work of Hi-Rez studios so I figured maybe I'd like this. It's going to be a new kind of MOBA in that it is third person and uses the pantheons of different civilizations as the champions. I am really looking forward to the third person aspect of this game as well as being able to play gods like Anubis and Zeus. Who doesn't want to be Zeus! TotalBiscuit interview about Smite

While I'm on the topic of MOBAs; League of Legends has a new game mode that will be coming out soon(ish) called Dominion. It's a point capture game mode and it looked amazingly fun. The 45 minute games of Summoner's Rift were really starting to get boring. Dominion games will supposedly be 15-25 minutes in length. Much more accessible and easier to jump in, play a game, then be on your merry way. Dominion Trailer


Last but not least; a console game. Now I usually don't fawn over console stuff. If you couldn't tell I am a PC gamer through and through. But I saw some footage of the new Rayman game, Rayman Origins (by Ubisoft), and it looks utterly amazing. It's an old school style platformer much more akin to the original Rayman (which I owned on PC) which was an extremely fun and challenging game. It is download only and I may just buy a game on my 360 when that comes out. TotalBiscuit plays Rayman co-op

That's what I've seen come out of Gamescom so far that's really interested me. Still waiting on TotalBiscuit's other videos *cough*Torchlight2*cough* but I can be patient.

Budget Gaming: Bastion

Bastion is $14.99 (19.99 for the soundtrack edition) on steam here: http://store.steampowered.com/app/107100/

(scroll down for TL;DR. I have a lot to say about this game so I won't be offended if you do =P)

(As a sidenote I got the soundtrack edition and don't regret it. It has some good songs on it.
Sample1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8cELTdtw6U
Sample2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYaFbFLAQlQ)

Bastion is a hack and slash style game. However, it's not like Diablo or Torchlight. In those games you had to constantly upgrade gear. You would find something awesome and then half an hour later you would replace it with something better. Not so in Bastion (more on that later). Something that is familiar to hack and slash games is health potions. You will be using plenty of these in Bastion... or at least I do =P. It also has "Black Tonics" which are used up when you use a special ability. It also has a narrator that tells the story as you play it.

The story behind the game is that a "calamity" happened and destroyed the world as you knew it and you have to rebuild it. In each level the world appears before you as you go through it. It sort of falls from the sky or flies up from under you. It's a really fun mechanic that allows for some secret places with lots of money or something, which means it's fun to explore.

Throughout the entire game there is a narrator telling your story. When I first heard about this, before I bought the game, I thought it might be annoying and just get in the way. In reality though the narrator makes you want to find out what's happening next. It's just like playing a story that's being told to you. Not to mention he has sort of a sense of humor. If you fall off the side of the level the narrator says things like "and then the hero falls to his death... just kidding" (if you fall off the side you don't die you just get hurt and fall out of the sky onto solid ground). He also comments on things you do from time to time. If you kill a powerful enemy he will say something like "And he will be no more." Or if you go to  switch out your weapons but change your mind and stay with what you had he will say something like "the Kid stuck with tried and true methods." It really does add to the game.

In Bastion you have a few weapons which can all be upgraded with "world shards" (or something, which is the currency) and a specific item for each weapon, which you find while going through the levels ("something heavy" for the hammer weapon, etc.). This way you don't replace your weapons and you can keep your favorite weapon throughout the whole game. Or you can play every level with a different weapon if you want and still be just as effective. This system provides enough variety since you can equip two weapons and mix and match both ranged and melee weapons to find your favorite combo. The special abilities add an "oh Sh** button" so to speak. They are powerful defensive or offensive abilities that use up black tonics. That can clear a room or block all projectiles for a short time and everything in between. The weapons and special abilities are all very different and are not available at the beginning of the game; as you play through the game you find new weapons.

The weapons are very fun and I have yet to find one that doesn't have a real feeling of destruction when you use them (which is always a brilliant feeling). Each weapon also feels unique and has different strengths and weaknesses. For example, the hammer swings slowly but deals tons of damage when standing still. The different weapons allow for very customizable loadouts. Not only are each of the weapons different but each weapon has different ways of using it. What I mean by that is that there is an upgrade system for each weapon. There are 3 tiers of upgrades with 2 separate upgrades on each tier. To make this system even better you are not stuck with the upgrade you chose at first. You can test it out and switch freely between the 2 upgrades on the same tier to see which you like better. Through this weapon system the combat is highly customizable and can fit a large variety of playstyles.

In addition to the weapons you have a shield. The shield blocks attacks which stuns melee enemies for a short time. You can also counter attack ranged baddies if you block right before the projectile hits you. The shield only blocks in front of you though so watch out for attacks from behind.

There are also challenge levels for each weapon (and the shield). You get rewards for using the different weapons effectively which benefit those weapons directly by either the upgrade item for that weapon or (the "something heavy", etc.), if you use the weapon effectively enough, a special skill specifically for that weapon. These levels are good to hone your skills with a certain weapon or just to kill some stuff.

The levels are not that long in Bastion but there is replayablity in each level due to the Shrine. At the shrine you can invoke the wrath of the gods which makes the baddies in each level harder. It may be by giving them more health or by making the baddies drop small grenades when they die (it took me a while to realize what was happening with that one =P). Not only does this add replayablity but it adds challenge. This is not without a reward however, as you get extra experience and money for activating these challenges. Which brings me to leveling...

There is no skill tree nor are there talents or anything like that. Each time you level you get more maximum health and a slot in your distillery. The distillery is a place where you equip Spirits (a drink not a ghost) which give passive bonuses. These bonuses are quite helpful. To give examples of a few there is one that allows you to get back up with a small amount of health after you die for the first time in a level and another that makes health potions heal all your health and you can hold 2 more. So needless to say these spirits are pretty helpful.

TL;DR

Bastion is amazing. It's a hack and slash game that strays from the traditional styles of games like diablo and torchlight but in a good way. There's no loot but the weapon and upgrade systems allow for tons of customization of gameplay. There's a narrator that tells your story as you go through the game which really adds to the story of the game. Most hack and slash games don't have a very enticing story (or at least not really enticing enough to make me pay attention) but Bastion certainly does. I would highly recommend this game.

From Dust on the PC

 Still $14.95 on GamersGate (Here)
(for some reason it wont let me take screenshots so sorry about the lack of imagery)

This game was clearly made for xbox without any thought to PC gamers. Inhumanrampager loved this game on xbox and since buying it on PC I can see why. The controls are so stiff it's like the game replaced my mouse with an analog stick. Not only that, but the camera kept moving without it telling it to. It would center on where my mouse was like it was telling me "this is actually where you want your camera to be." If that's where I wanted my camera to be I would have put it there.

At first I found the gameplay to be a bit shallow. I was playing the first few levels hoping that the whole game wasn't just picking up dirt and putting it down somewhere else. While that basically is what the core of the game is there are also other things that happen later on like volcanoes, floods, wildfires, and other natural disasters that you have to keep from destroying your villages. So after the first few levels it starts to get a bit hectic.

One thing that bothered me about the game was the villager AI. I would sent my villagers to a new village and they would get stuck on nothingness and just stand there. Or 4 of the 5 villagers would make it there fine and then the fifth would somehow not find a way. I found myself yelling at my screen at times saying, "Guy, you just watched 4 others walk up this hill how do you not know how!"

Overall though it was a pretty good game if you're into the whole god game thing. It reminds me a bit of populous only with less control and there are no opponents.

Oh and by the way the DRM for this game is that you have to make an account with Ubisoft and log in to play the game. I'm guessing you have to stay online to play the game. Some people find that atrocious so I thought I'd mention it. I just see it as a slight annoyance. I'm online all the time anyway so it doesn't bother me too much.

TL;DR
Decent game from the "god game" family, but blatantly a console port. Gameplay is a little shallow in the beginning but it gets better. DRM where you have to be online and logged into a Uplay account to play. If you do decide to get it get it on xbox or use a gamepad for your PC.

Game Review: From Dust

$14.95 on GamersGate (Here)

Holy shit balls on a cracker, this game was awesome. When I saw some gameplay preview video on Xbox Live, I wanted to try it immediately. I got the demo, and loved it....so I bought it on Xbox Live Arcade. Not only is the gameplay incredible, but the graphics are as well. The water is the most realistic looking water I have seen so far (note, I didn't play Hydrophobia, so that could be better for all I know). This game is all about terraforming to save your villagers by using The Breath of Life (or something like that; I can't remember). As you progress through each level, the difficulty rises, making you ask yourself "Ok, how the fuck am I gonna do this?" From active volcanoes to tsunamis, it seems like this game is trying to through whatever natural disaster it can at you. There are some levels where water is all over the place, ready to wash away your village, where other levels hardly have any, and you need it to spread vegetation. Lava is fun to use, but it will quickly burn everything around it, starting a wildfire. And unless you have either repel water or repel fire and lava, your village is basically screwed. There are some neat things about this game though, aside from just picking up dirt, water, or lava to cool it into rock: some villages have certain powers that you can use (activated by using the d-pad on Xbox) to change things up. Out of the plethora on there, Infinite Earth (which allows you to place as much dirt as possible in a short time), and Enhance Breath (which allows you to pick up and place more stuff) are easily my favorite 2, and when used together, allow you to basically change the entire look of a map in just seconds. In addition to those two, there's also Put Out Fire, Evaporate, Jellify Water (which turns water into Jello for a brief moment in time), and a couple others that totally slipped my mind. However, only a maximum of 4 abilities are on most maps in the story, as there are a maximum of 4 villages. And on top of all THAT, there are 3 types of trees, Fire Trees (which catch on fire and start wildfires at random intervals), Water Trees, (which will spew water when there's a heat source near by), and Explosion Trees (which explode when there's a heat source near by, and they can make big ass craters). All of those elements combined (which are introduced gradually) make this quite the strategy game, if it is somewhat simple compared to others. There are many awesome looking levels: deserts, open oceans, the side of an active volcano, and hell, why not, inside an active volcano. The last of those was the level Movements, which occurs very late in the game. It was the only level that I needed to look up a strategy to complete it. As of right now I'm only missing a couple achievements, and I'll get them eventually....the only ones I'm concerned with are the ones related to the challenge maps. There's one where you do a playthrough while losing only 5 villages...and that's just a pain in the ass. Overall, From Dust is a visually pleasing and fun strategy game. As one should have already guessed, it's out now on Xbox Live Arcade for 1200 Microsoft Points. It should be out in September on the Playstation Network, for "$ Who Knows," while OnLive also plans a release for it at some point (which will include touch controls for the iPad). And finally, for about $15 on Steam (and other places, I'm sure), PC gamers will get to enjoy it in just a few short hours. Or now. Not quite sure.

Edit: oh hey, forgot the score: 8 villages surrounded by fire out of 10.

Budget Gaming: King's Bounty

King's Bounty: Platinum is on sale on GamersGate now for the next 10 hours or so for just $8.74.


(http://www.gamersgate.com/DDB-KBP/kings-bounty-platinum-bundle?caff=3726121)

King's bounty is a turn based strategy of sorts. I say "of sorts" because really only the battle screen is turn based.  tactical battle screen when you run into enemies in which you can use spells and whatnot. I really like this game and the platinum includes all the expansions and whatnot.

Basically in King's bounty you run around the world hiring more and better soldiers as you go along. instead of having just one soldier in each unit though you can have a maximum number which is set by your leadership stat. I think it's fun to have 200 of the basic soldier or something. On the other hand I really don't like that I basically have to go back to the building that I recruited those soldiers from to restock on them after every battle. It really adds a lot of empty gameplay to the game but it just may be that I suck at the tactical battle part of the game. =P

You have a hero and he/she levels up as you go through the game. They also have a passive skill tree in which you can gain some pretty awesome passives. There are three different kinds of runes that you collect and you can spend those runes in the respective tree for a little more customization. I like that you aren't stuck to being a warrior or something and you can spend points in the mage tree or something. Unfortunately you don't always find the runes you want out in the world. But fortunately you get extra of whatever class you picked whenever you level up.  Unlike other games like this you can only have the one hero so you can't divide and conquer but then again you're not really conquering anything. You run around and try to defeat armies of increasing power as you level up. So it really does work. I just prefer having multiple heroes.

Overall it's a really fun game and took over quite a few hours of my life for a while when I bought it. It's also a remake of a really old game of the same name. I've played the older one (although not for as long) and I really feel it improves it while staying true to the franchise.

TL;DR
King's bounty is a strategy game with a turn based tactical battle system and a hero that you level up and stuff. It's in the same boat as Heroes of Might and Magic and Disciples. However, you have one hero and no cities. I definitely recommend this game. It's 75% off right now on GamersGate and it provides hours of entertainment.

Nostalgia Gaming: Black & White

I just reinstalled Black & White and remembered how amazing it was.

If you've never played it before it's kind of a real time strategy game but also a God simulation game. You are a god and you have to please your people with whatever they need, be it food, wood, homes, etc., by any means necessary. This can mean killing the homeless or making homes for them. You can be good or evil and, as we all know, evil is almost always more fun.  Your people can either fear or love you but either way they will follow you.

You also have a creature. It changes its appearances depending on its alignment (which is separate from yours). This creature can cast the miracles you teach it to help please the villagers. To learn these miracles you have to train your creature. Actually, you have to train your creature to do anything. For example, if it poops against something you don't want it to you can smack it about. You really have to micro manage your creature for a while in the beginning to train it. I found the best way to do this was to just go into a skirmish game and follow it around. You can train it to eat villagers too which I thought was entertaining...

The villages are scattered throughout the islands when the game starts. However, you can also build your own. The happier or more terrified you make the villagers the more they believe in you. To achieve this you can either heal sick villagers or throw rocks at their faces. At a certain amount of belief they will convert to you and give you all the miracles that they have knowledge of. Converting these villages will bring you closer to destroying the temple of the other god(s), which you need to do in order to win that map.

The gameplay is amazing and is pretty sandboxy. The campaign is really challenging and can take hours upon hours (which is a good thing if you have no life like me =P ). Also good and evil games are almost always fun for me. There is a modding and map making community as well. I'm not exactly sure how active it is now seeing as how the game was made in 2001 but here is a site to download maps and mods from:

http://www.kayssplace.com/boards/index.php?board=5.0

And if you don't have the game you can buy it on Amazon here (for some reason it's stupid expensive new so it'd probably be better if you bought it used... or got it through other means but I didn't tell you to do that):

http://tinyurl.com/yhruq3h

TL;DR
Get it if you can. Certainly worth playing at least once. 

And for people who are wondering I've never played Black & White 2 but I've heard it focused more on building up cities rather than being a god so I can't really say if it is any better. Certainly looks better but that's really the only judgement I can make.

Drunken Gamer Journal: Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2 is a fantastic game, however, it's ones of those games where, if I'm playing it drunk, I think I'm gonna kick some ass, but I end up just chewing bubblegum. Now I'm not saying I'm the greatest player in the world, but I managed to get to level 60 by just playing horde mode....and I spent a good chunk of time during the extra experience weeks/weekends when I could just so I could level up faster. What I'm saying is, I know how to use a Lancer, just not when I'm drunk. Normally I can manage staying in the mediocre area, tying with my buddies on the kill count, but last night was an entirely different story. It's like I suddenly developed mental retardation from drunkenness during gameplay. I was managing 2 kills this wave, 3 the next, none on another....I think there were only a couple waves when I actually had a decent amount of kills. We were playing on Memorial, and we were holed up in an area suited for 2 people, 1 covering each side. However, we had 3, so one of my buddies, who enjoys sniping, took the middle. I was having a hard time keeping up with them, with most of the enemies being mid range, and I was trying to squeeze headshots with a Boltok pistol. Hell, I was trying to line up with one dude to kill him, and headshotted someone else entirely! But there came a point when both of my buddies died. There were 2 enemies left, both were a Cyclops, and they chainsawed em down. Then they started after me, in a roadie run. I knew what they were thinking....they were gonna chainsaw me. I managed to shoot both of them down with my Lancer in close range. That was my only awesome moment. Hell, we even managed to get me the "Am I Only Dreaming" achievement (Reach level 40 in multiplayer and complete waves 1 - 40 on the Memorial map in Horde). Don't get me wrong, I fucking love this game, I just don't do well while I'm intoxicated. Though I do wonder how I'll be with Gears of War 3 while I'm drunk..... September 20th can't come soon enough.

Budget Gameing: Trine

This is a review of Trine, a side scrolling puzzle platformer on sale on GamersGate now for $2 for the rest of the week. Here are my thoughts on the game. Scroll to the bottom for a Rating, TL;DR, and a pros/cons list if you’re lazy like me.   =P


(http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-TRINE/trine?caff=3726121)
So let me start off by saying I am not amazing at puzzle platformers nor am I a huge fan of them. They entertain for a while but they can never hold my attention for too long. I usually end up getting frustrated and playing a different game. That being said, Trine isn’t really one of those games.

In Trine you play as three different characters; a mage, a warrior, and a thief. They all have their own special skills to help solve the problems you will face. Switching between them is literally as easy as 1, 2, 3 (pressing the buttons at least). The mage moves boxes with magic, the warrior fights, and the thief has a grappling hook to get to hard to reach places.

As you go through the game you collect vials of experience which allow your characters to level up (which they all do at the same time. You don’t have to get experience for each one separately). You also come across chests which contain either items or new skills for your characters. You can improve these skills as you level up.

This game offers a great puzzle experience and the combat is nice and doesn’t just feel like a filler between puzzles. At some points the game throws skeletons at you while you’re trying to solve the puzzles making you solve them under pressure and think on your feet. I really like this as it forces you to do the puzzle instead of sitting there pondering it for 5 minutes and then doing it. That’s just a personal preference though.

The puzzles are, often times, not too hard. Sometimes I wish that the puzzles were harder, but there are plenty of puzzles in each level of varying difficulties. Luckily you don’t die right away when you mess up and you can regenerate your health with potions that sometimes drop off the baddies. Don’t take this the wrong way though, the puzzles were challenging. I didn’t find any that I was just like “This is way too easy…” nor did I find any that made me say “F$&% this game I’m playing a different one!” There are also frequent checkpoints in case one of your characters dies which doesn’t happen too often unless you aren’t being careful.

The system with the three heroes is certainly a fun feature. You have to switch back and forth all the time to solve the puzzles. It also allows for different playstyles. You could like to use the thief to grapple everywhere to solve problems or maybe you like to use the wizard to move all the boxes around. Some puzzles, however, force you to use a certain character. This doesn’t really strike me as a negative but I could see how someone might not want to play one of the characters. I feel it is required, if you have a system like this, to force the player to think out of the box and say “which guy should I use here, I wonder.” The three characters also feel very different. It’s not just like one guy has a sword, one has a bow, and one has a staff. The way they help solve the puzzles is unique and they all have their own specialties.

I don’t have very many negative things to say about this game. One thing I will say that bothered me is the camera. I don’t mind sidescrollers but sometimes in this game there are points where a rock or something in the foreground will get in the way. This isn’t really gamebreaking, as it doesn’t happen often and usually it wont block much of the screen. However, I really don’t like how the camera will sometimes move on to focus on a different area when you need to grab a box or something in the last. This doesn’t happen often however, and they’ve done a fine job of keeping everything you need in one area. That pretty much sums up the negatives.

9/10

TL;DR
Trine is a pretty awesome game utilizing three different characters to solve fairly challenging puzzles. The only thing I had a slight issue with was the camera at some points. Overall though I would strongly recommend picking this up.

Pros:
+Great puzzles
+The three character system adds to the complexity of the puzzles rather than being a silly gimick
+Characters feel very different
+Not a bad looking game either
+Only $2!! Great price for the amount of entertainment you will get from it even if you don’t like puzzle games. It’s only $2!

Cons:
-Sometimes the camera is a little wonky
-Sometimes I find myself clearly jumping onto a platform only to slide off. This is possibly just my own fault though…
If there’s anything that you think will make these reviews better leave a comment. Thanks!

Disciples 3 review

Disciples III is a turn-based strategy game on GamersGate now for about $7.50 (actually because I took too long it’s back to $30). Here are my thoughts on the game. Scroll to the bottom for a Rating, TL;DR, and a pros/cons list if you’re lazy like me.   =P

This game wasn’t what I expected, let’s start off by saying that. It was a far cry from what Disciples 2 was, but still very much the same.

Let me Elaborate…

First let’s talk about what’s the same.
The unit progression system in which every unit gains experience and can be upgraded by constructing the corresponding buildings in your main city is still there. I love this feature and wish other games like this had it. It gives you a certain connection with your units instead of just throwing them away because you can always make a new one.

Another thing is the spread of influence, which I also find pretty fun. The terrain around your city will change depending on which faction you are. Each turn it spreads just a little bit. There are mines, mana generators, etc. that you can gain benefits from but only if your influence has spread under it.
You can also cast spells when you are on the world map. This is a common thing in games like these which allows you to prepare for what may be a difficult battle by hurting the enemy unit or buffing your own. This is a solid feature and I’m very glad it stayed.

Overall the core mechanics stayed the same making it reminiscent of Disciples 2, however they changed a few things that I am personally displeased about.

There were many things that were in Disciples that I sorely missed from Disciples 3 one of which being the more static battles where your units would stand still. There was no positioning involved (besides maybe melee in the front row ranged in back) nor was there much though involved. While I like the tactical battles in Disciples 3 it’s not what I’ve come to expect from disciples. It felt a lot more like Heroes of Might and Magic than Disciples which makes this game less unique than its predecessor. Something that stayed the same about these battles is the unfortunate crit/miss percentages. I always felt like the enemy would crit at the right time to kill my units while I would miss at a crucial moment and then lose the battle. That may just be my own problem though.

Something I wish they had kept is the system with rods. No not those rods…you sick freak... In Disciples 2 they were specialist heroes that could lay down rods in the world map to spread influence. These would spread influence slower than a city but you could place one next to a resource instead of waiting the umpteen turns required to spread that far from your city. I feel this added some strategy as well because you could easily steal an enemies gold mine. It forced you to protect your resources, something essential in most strategy games.

One thing that is different that I feel is an improvement is the Hero system. Instead of just recruiting a leader for a unit that was basically just another unit, only more powerful, your heroes have skill trees and upgradable stats. They also added runes. Runes are just spells from your spellbook that you can cast during a battle. I thought that was a nice little addition.

6.5 ot of 10

TL;DR
Overall the game was a fun game but nothing like its predecessor. Don’t get me wrong change is sometimes good but in this case I feel it took away from the series. Basically Get Disciples 2 Gold on GamersGate instead (which is about $3 for what looks like the rest of August). Not worth $30.

Pros:
+Hero/Unit Progression
+Updated Graphics
+Kept most core game mechanics

Cons:
-Some game changes took away from the feel of Disciples
-No new units/factions
-Tactical battles make it feel more like a Heroes of Might and Magic clone instead of its own game
If anything can make my reviews better just leave a comment. Thanks!