I haven't quite finished this epic solo RPG yet, but am confident I can give others a pretty fair rundown on the thing. Bioware spent 5 years making this product, targeting older gamers like me who are fans of the Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights series. And, given that they did so without any D&D licensing, I can say they've done a pretty good job. I'll break my opinions down into categories that really matter.
Characters & Classes:
DAO keeps this part simple - you start off with a choice of 3 races and classes (Human/Elf/Dwarf, Warrior/Mage/Rogue). You gain points per level to spend on stats, skills, talents and spells, but the selection isn't huge and uses a 'skill tree' style of progression. What you do get, though, is the chance to choose specialisations within your class (similar to Prestige classes in NWN). These specialisations aren't unlocked by pre-requisite stats or skills, though. Instead, you have to find a special book or NPC in the game world to unlock them for you. Each of the three classes offers a character up to 2 specialisations, meaning that if I found the right teachers or (very) expensive books, I could make my Rogue a Rogue/Assassin/Ranger, or a Rogue/Duellist/Bard.
Party Play:
DAO is optimised for you to play a party of up to 4 characters (your primary PC + 3 others). You encounter several party NPCs along the way, allowing you to build a pool of characters to choose from. This means flexibility for different missions (do I take a rogue or another tank?), and even your reserve characters level up while siting on the bench. One thing is definite in DAO - you will not get through quests by trying to go solo. The bad guys scale up to your level too, no matter which quests - or order therein - that you do.
Combat:
It's all pause n' play, though you can't chain series of spells/attacks like in NWN. To compensate for this the game give each character 'tactics slots'. Depending on skill choices and level, the more slots each gets. A tactics slot allows you to set a combat parameter for a character (eg: when ally's health drops below 50%, heal them). At higher levels you can feasibly set 5-6 different conditional actions for each party member, and that's not including general 'aggressive vs defensive' behavioural attitudes as well. I still prefer to micro-manage battles, though, because the fights are fast and furious and demand the type of constant attention no AI can compensate for.
Quests:
There is a main story arc over 4 long quests, with plenty of side quests (both during and in between). The developers have poured a fuckton of effort into the stories and it shows. This is both great and annoying. Why?
Cutscenes:
It feels like half the budget went on voice actors. Seriously, I switched to subtitles after the intro quests because of this. Find a clue? Cutscene. Approach a boss fight? Cutscene. Accidentally click on a merchant or party member? Fucking cutscene. You can skip through the dialogue by pressing 'esc' a dozen times, and you will. Constantly. The worst bit is when you approach big bosses. The game feels that villians should be given equal air time, even when my Rogue is trying to tactically place tanks, mages and archers before stealthily back-stabbing the sonovabitch in the neck. And when this sort of cutscene triggers it automatically undoes all that effort and places your entire party bunched together in full view within a circle of rape-hungry henchmen. For this reason alone I turned off the 'Friendly Fire' difficulty option because AoE attacks became redundant.
Downloadable Content:
This is an inceasingly worrying trend among Western game developers who stole the idea from Eastern MMORPGs and started back with NWN (Kingmaker) when Bioware packaged the best open source modules into mini-transaction products. The first release of DOA comes with a couple of download codes for extra DLC - a suit of special tank armour, and an extra quest that nets you a new NPC for your party pool. Personally I suspect these initial 'freebie' extras serve as a tutorial on how to acces and use the DAO site and it's points based currency system (US $10 = around 600 points, which can be used to buy special quests or gear). There's only one other official DLC quest so far (Wardens Keep), and the cheeky bastards actually advertise it in-game - some dude approaches you with a mission while you camp and tries guilt-tripping you into buying it online. Penny Arcade sum up this encounter perfectly.
Still, gaming communities being what they are, all this 'premium content' stuff was leaked on all sorts of torrents within a few days of release.
Conclusion:
Despite some criticisms, this is a good game for old school, dungeon-crawling traditionalists that boasts 80 hours gameplay (especially if you include the 20 hours of cutscenes). The DLC is okay (Wardens Keep only lasts an hour, but you get the only item bank in the game which is cool), but it's a concept I don't necessarily agree with - decent, NWN-style expansions would be better. Dunno if the game's worth $110 (unlike BG and NWN products, there's no multi-play), but it sure is addictive.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Forget The Forgotten
I found out what Christian Slater has been up to lately by trying to watch the pilot to the new crime drama, The Forgotten. 18 mins in and I had to stop. This show runs along a similar vein to Cold Case, Bones and the whole CSI "scientists who think they're real cops" kinda deal, only one step more ridiculous. In The Forgotten, the unlikely team of sleuths have about as much credibility as the team in Scooby Doo. Here's the premise: they are meant to be volunteers who dedicate their spare time to identifying unknown murder victims after the police give up on the case. Read that sentence a few times and you should come up with a few questions, the far from least important being "What the fucking hell?"
When the cops decide "Aw, fuck it, we'll never ID this corpse" they turn the case over to a bunch of unqualified, amateur citizens who have zero resources, no formal investigative training, not a forensic degree between them, and who only work out of hours due to their normal day jobs. If it was a show about volunteers helping to track down missing persons I could buy it, but we're talking about unidentified murder victims, murder being the one kinda case the cops are never meant to give up on. That's kinda what 'no statute of limitations on murder' means.
And how do these private citizens go about identifying homicide victims that the cops can't? Website postings? Public awareness campaigns? Billboards? Fuck that shit. One's a sculptor who, using only crime scene photos of a decomposed, partially devoured corpse, faithfully reconstructs a bust of the victim overnight. Because, of course, cops don't know how to do that sort of thing, having never attended art college. Meanwhile, the rest of the team chase leads, question suspects and chronicle the circumstantial evidence because cops never ever do that shit themselves.
You know what the cops are like: they get to the crime scene, find a body and ask "So, does anyone know who this is and who killed her? No? Damn, we've hit a brick wall. Better hand this over to Christian Slater and some other well meaning citizens. Maybe they can solve it, though if they do we'll look a bit silly cos we're meant to be the experts when it comes to the whole 'solving crime' thing. Oh, and if they do find the killer the courts might go tell us to fuck ourselves for letting amateurs abuse all that evidence we just arbitrarily handed over for no good reason. Oh well."
It's almost as though US crime drama is trying to ret-con the good old days when the Hardy Boys and Jessica Fletcher were the only ones supposedly qualified to solve murders. They're already doing it with that show Castle (a true waste of Nathan Fillion, though Stana Katic is super hot) but at least it's still cop based. It was old and boring then, and now it's old, boring and quantifiably insane. The beginning of the 21st century saw crime shows go high-tech, but producers weren't satisfied with just the nifty tech bit, so scientists were given guns and ambiguous law enforcement powers too. Now you don't even have to be on the police payroll, not even as a janitor, to solve crime. But there's actually several good reasons why psychics, stage magicians, novelists, sculptors and Christian Slater aren't actually allowed to investigate fatal crimes in real life, one of which is their habit of ignoring the fundamental 5 step process employed by just about all law enforcement agencies in the Western world:
1. Investigate the scene: the first thing a detective or investigator does when they arrive at a crime scene is put their hands in their pockets. This is to limit the chance of them actually touching anything while they survey the place and stop other people who aren't specially trained forensic techs from fucking touching shit like bullet casings, the body, cigarette butts and the like.
2. Investigate the evidence: once all the scene evidence has been secured, the photos taken, the reports from the FOS (first on scene) cop compiled and so on the detectives then review that shit to keep in mind for step 5.
3. Interview the public: ie any potential witnesses, being careful to record their statements in detail.
4. Review all documentation: this includes all that stuff recorded from steps 1 - 3 (and subsequent 'lab reports'), as well as any other relevant records that may pertain to the actions and whereabouts of any viable suspects.
5. Interview the suspect: when, and only when, has all relevant and expected evidence been collated and consulted will the police actually formally interview their suspect(s). The possible perpretrator may have been apprehended at the scene or soon after, but they wont be formally questioned until all this other data has come in, because cops need facts to form those questions. Also, suspects hardly ever confess on the spot or even in interview rooms, especially in cases as complicated as murder.
The other bit with these shows - and crime fiction in general - is the emphasis on the 'true motive' of criminals. Police don't really give a shit about focusing on motives. In order to build a case they need to know 'where', 'when', 'who' and 'how'. The 'why' bit is almost irrelevant, either because it's really fucking obvious (eg: biker retaliation killing) or unfathomable (Spenser Spreekill hated the last Star Trek film so much that the audience had to die). Motive never mitigates pre-meditated murder so long as the suspect is culpable (they know murder is wrong outside of video games) and capable (their hands work well enough to operate a gun/knife/chainsaw).
When the cops decide "Aw, fuck it, we'll never ID this corpse" they turn the case over to a bunch of unqualified, amateur citizens who have zero resources, no formal investigative training, not a forensic degree between them, and who only work out of hours due to their normal day jobs. If it was a show about volunteers helping to track down missing persons I could buy it, but we're talking about unidentified murder victims, murder being the one kinda case the cops are never meant to give up on. That's kinda what 'no statute of limitations on murder' means.
And how do these private citizens go about identifying homicide victims that the cops can't? Website postings? Public awareness campaigns? Billboards? Fuck that shit. One's a sculptor who, using only crime scene photos of a decomposed, partially devoured corpse, faithfully reconstructs a bust of the victim overnight. Because, of course, cops don't know how to do that sort of thing, having never attended art college. Meanwhile, the rest of the team chase leads, question suspects and chronicle the circumstantial evidence because cops never ever do that shit themselves.
You know what the cops are like: they get to the crime scene, find a body and ask "So, does anyone know who this is and who killed her? No? Damn, we've hit a brick wall. Better hand this over to Christian Slater and some other well meaning citizens. Maybe they can solve it, though if they do we'll look a bit silly cos we're meant to be the experts when it comes to the whole 'solving crime' thing. Oh, and if they do find the killer the courts might go tell us to fuck ourselves for letting amateurs abuse all that evidence we just arbitrarily handed over for no good reason. Oh well."
It's almost as though US crime drama is trying to ret-con the good old days when the Hardy Boys and Jessica Fletcher were the only ones supposedly qualified to solve murders. They're already doing it with that show Castle (a true waste of Nathan Fillion, though Stana Katic is super hot) but at least it's still cop based. It was old and boring then, and now it's old, boring and quantifiably insane. The beginning of the 21st century saw crime shows go high-tech, but producers weren't satisfied with just the nifty tech bit, so scientists were given guns and ambiguous law enforcement powers too. Now you don't even have to be on the police payroll, not even as a janitor, to solve crime. But there's actually several good reasons why psychics, stage magicians, novelists, sculptors and Christian Slater aren't actually allowed to investigate fatal crimes in real life, one of which is their habit of ignoring the fundamental 5 step process employed by just about all law enforcement agencies in the Western world:
1. Investigate the scene: the first thing a detective or investigator does when they arrive at a crime scene is put their hands in their pockets. This is to limit the chance of them actually touching anything while they survey the place and stop other people who aren't specially trained forensic techs from fucking touching shit like bullet casings, the body, cigarette butts and the like.
2. Investigate the evidence: once all the scene evidence has been secured, the photos taken, the reports from the FOS (first on scene) cop compiled and so on the detectives then review that shit to keep in mind for step 5.
3. Interview the public: ie any potential witnesses, being careful to record their statements in detail.
4. Review all documentation: this includes all that stuff recorded from steps 1 - 3 (and subsequent 'lab reports'), as well as any other relevant records that may pertain to the actions and whereabouts of any viable suspects.
5. Interview the suspect: when, and only when, has all relevant and expected evidence been collated and consulted will the police actually formally interview their suspect(s). The possible perpretrator may have been apprehended at the scene or soon after, but they wont be formally questioned until all this other data has come in, because cops need facts to form those questions. Also, suspects hardly ever confess on the spot or even in interview rooms, especially in cases as complicated as murder.
The other bit with these shows - and crime fiction in general - is the emphasis on the 'true motive' of criminals. Police don't really give a shit about focusing on motives. In order to build a case they need to know 'where', 'when', 'who' and 'how'. The 'why' bit is almost irrelevant, either because it's really fucking obvious (eg: biker retaliation killing) or unfathomable (Spenser Spreekill hated the last Star Trek film so much that the audience had to die). Motive never mitigates pre-meditated murder so long as the suspect is culpable (they know murder is wrong outside of video games) and capable (their hands work well enough to operate a gun/knife/chainsaw).
Thursday, August 27, 2009
Distrct 9 & Inglorious Basterds
Just a quick rap on these hotly anticipated releases. D9 - absolutely brilliant! I did a bit of background reading and found out why. The premise for this movie is not too dissimilar to the 1998 US film, Alien Nation - a bunch of aliens get stranded on Earth and the local govt tries to integrate them into society with xeno-rascist results. Only in D9 we get this concept handled South African style, which means xeno-rascism without any of the US sensitivity or remorse. It's no surprise that writer/director Neill Blomkamp imposed his own experiences of apartheid South Africa so heavily into the film. The result is horrifically hilarious, especially in the portrayl of the reluctant protagonist, Wickus Van De Mewre (played by unknown and hitherto non-actor, Sharlto Copley). There is no way this film could have worked out so well if Peter Jackson tried it in a US setting. Also, this movie would make one badass video game based solely on the action alone.
By contrast, Inglorious Basterds was disappointing to me. I've had a hit/miss history with Tarantino films, though I agree this one was well produced, scripted and cast. The tense dialogues, suspense and characteristically explicit violence all feature in this work, as do certain ironies that play out in this alternate universe where Jewish revenge fantasies see Hitler and his chief cronies meet their grisly fates. But for all that I still didn't enjoy it so much. Why? It was just too fucking long (2 hours and 28 minutes before the credits roll). I could handle such sagas with Watchmen and LOTR trilogy flicks because I knew walking into the cinema that they were based on really long stories, but I expected something tighter with Tarantino. The afore-mentioned tension and blood-work should have made the time fly, but half the film is in French/German/Italian so I had to read over an hour's worth of subtitles to boot. I guess I would have felt the same way if Kill Bill was released in a single volume.
By contrast, Inglorious Basterds was disappointing to me. I've had a hit/miss history with Tarantino films, though I agree this one was well produced, scripted and cast. The tense dialogues, suspense and characteristically explicit violence all feature in this work, as do certain ironies that play out in this alternate universe where Jewish revenge fantasies see Hitler and his chief cronies meet their grisly fates. But for all that I still didn't enjoy it so much. Why? It was just too fucking long (2 hours and 28 minutes before the credits roll). I could handle such sagas with Watchmen and LOTR trilogy flicks because I knew walking into the cinema that they were based on really long stories, but I expected something tighter with Tarantino. The afore-mentioned tension and blood-work should have made the time fly, but half the film is in French/German/Italian so I had to read over an hour's worth of subtitles to boot. I guess I would have felt the same way if Kill Bill was released in a single volume.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)