Thursday, June 5, 2014

PAD #12: Trailers and Controversy. Yay! ^_^

My back was really sore yesterday, so I spent most of my time taking it easy and watching Game Grumps and Zero Punctuation while laying at my bed.  Unfortunately, this meant I didn't want to sit at my desk since that would have aggravated the problem.  As much as I want to get a post per day up, it isn't worth doing more damage to my back than has already been done.  On the plus side, I got a new chair for my desk, the old one being the main reason my back went out.

There's a New Witcher 3 trailer.  Never did play the second one, but I loved the first one, so I might have to pick that one up when it comes out.  I'll have to see how the stories tie together and if I should beat The Witcher 2 first.  I suppose some people would tell me that I should just on principle.  On that note, I just learned that there was a gameplay trailer for X that was released a while back.  Looks like its combat is going to be a retread of Xenoblade's, which I have mixed feelings over.  The combat system wasn't bad per se, but it felt clunky.  It seems like it was set-up to be controlled with a keyboard first, and later jury-rigged to work for a controller set-up; which might make sense if it wasn't a console-exclusive title.  Basically, it was a fun game, it just feels like I should have been playing it on my PC instead of the Wii.

A bit of commentary about Early Access games happened on Total Biscuit's latest mailbag episode, and I have to agree with him.  The issue at hand was about the writer of the letter going into the open beta for a game, but then seeing in-game purchases all over the place.  I think TB puts it best in this video when he says "If you started charging, it's fair game," and later, "anything that claims to be in open beta with a cash shop is not a beta anymore; it's just released.  It is a release!  If it is a release that has a lot of problems, then tough shit!  You decided to release a game, and you decided to charge money for it when it wasn't done."  Agreed, 100%.  Yes, every game is going to have its bugs, but when a game is released with several (potentially game-breaking) bugs, then it's inexcusable; I don't care if it has an "Early Access" tag.  Early Access is not an excuse to have a buggy product.

Still having a blast with Wildstar (when my computer isn't bottle-necking).  I think my favorite part is just the combat.  After all the MMOs I've played, this is one of the few where just fighting is entertaining.  I'm admittedly still in early-game content, so we'll see how it holds-up for end-game, but right now the game is in a state where I actually look forward to jumping into fights, where usually in an MMO the fights are just a means to an end.  Another thing I really like is the occasional challenge I stumble into.  At random the game will declare "Challenge Begins!"  Suddenly I have to kill as many enemies as I can, or maybe gather enough of an item that's laying on the ground, or maybe some form of a platforming challenge.  At the end the game gives you a randomized reward.  It's a nice little change from the usual grind of just running quests and turning them into the quest giver.  Speaking of which, that's another thing I like, most quest givers will call you when you complete the quest, allowing you to turn-in on the spot, and then they'll give you the next quest in the chain.  Cuts-out a lot of the back-and-forth trekking that plagues most quest chains in MMOs.  All-in-all, while the game does admittedly make a number of MMO mistakes, it does enough things to fix other MMO problems that it balances-out over-all.  Throw-in the fun combat, and it's just a good game over-all.

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