The Chronicles of Spellborn - CB Impressions

First off, no NDA has popped up anywhere, and my account just appeared with an "active" by it at Acclaim, so I feel I can touch on some things.

First off, there is no doubt that the game looks cool, and has a unique visual quality. The wife had a blast making our first character. I always let her make the decisions when trying a new game for the Character Creator to get a feel for how she likes a game.
She enjoyed that, but after 15 minutes of play, walked away, so that was not a good sign. She likes to stick around and watch Conan for as long as I play if she is in the mood...hmmm.

The intro tutorial is neat, but hopefully skippable after doing it once. Need someone else to tell me as I only tried the game once.

Issues were:
*Not all my resolutions were selectable. Due to playing on a 1080p TV, and the fonts being so small, I usually will put the game in 1360x768 (720p for LCD TV). This was NOT available. Luckily it is an Unreal game, so I found the ini file and change my res, and it worked.
*No joystick support. Even though Unreal games do have Pad access, it would not enable. And thanks to Gameguard software for anti-hacking, Xpadder, my 360 software controller configuration tool was also blocked. No joystick control on the couch is a big strike against the game for me.
*Lag randomly happening. Now, I run Age of Conan 100+FPS with no issues, yet here I would freeze randomly while around people, or mobs, etc. Just so...random.

The combat is cool. But, the "kill 10x" or "Get me 5 of this" type quests got old. And the text was just blah when reading these quests. I got major Deja Vu.

I have not loaded up since. So, not a good sign.

But, Resident Evil 5 is wicked awesome, and getting my high level in Conan has been such an exhilarating experience, that I will not miss TCoS.

Guess I have finally found my niche, and will be sticking it out...

Cheers

Quick tidbits

First off...Never ask a waitress to repeat an order if they are not writing it down...no matter how much food there is.

Now, I am unaware of proper etiquette in this situation, but really, it was a simple request, asked with a smile.

Went down like this.

Ordered a LOT of items on the menu at our favorite Indian Restaurant. What we usually do is have leftovers for lunch, plus we get to try a variety of flavors.

As I said the last item for our order, I looked up, smiled, and half jokingly said "Want to say that back?".

She looked at me as she was taking the menus and seemed to smirk and said "No. I think I got it."

The No had the slight pause as the sentence was ended. And then she said the rest. It made me embarrased and forced me to look away at that point as I could feel my face flush.

After that, we were pretty much ignored unless we forced her to come to our table.

She served me unsweet tea when I asked for sweet. I received my dish, a Goat Curry, full of bones and even bones in the actual sauce which I bit on and almost broke a tooth.

This was probably the worst service I have ever received at this restaurant...and we go there regularly.

She even had the gall to ask me if the plate full of bones and fat from my dish was "Ready to be packed up".

I pretty much let the wife do the rest of the talking that evening, and then let the wife decide the tip.

I believe it was 3%.

I wanted to gank her ass!

Now honestly. Did I deserve such treatment? Should I have really not "hurt her feelings" by asking her to repeat my order?

Moving on, we also picked up Resident Evil 5. Talk about a winner. They have taken the genre to a new level with the action gameplay. The stress is terrifying as you cannot pause to deal with inventory, and the tight spaces of the village you are in, make you always aware of what is behind you.

Another bonus item is the game runs in 1080P if you have the Xbox set that way (I do...hehe). Talk about detail and gorgeous visuals.

More on this as I progress.

I need to say this. You get what you pay for.

I also decided to invest in a new keyboard and mouse yesterday, as the set I was using seemed flaky (and the keyboard has an issue with dark letters on the black keys that when the lights are low in the living room, it is hard to type with).

I paid $100 bucks for the Microsoft Wireless 6000 V3.

The feel of the keys is nice. The tactile response is incredible. The placement of keys thanks to the slight ergonomic layout (not the horrendous split keyboard which just feels wrong) makes for less mistakes. And the mouse has a great comfort, with the thumbrest, and hand placement.

NO doubt, if you want good quality for a keyboard and mouse, pay the money.

Ok, I am off for more Conan. I forked that cash over and now have another two months of gameplay. I figure this is the first time I have ever come so close to hitting max in a game, and I am not bored and having a blast, so it is time to rock on.

I do have to state that I was accepted into the Chronicles of Spellborn beta, and as you can see from my above statement, it is not exactly what I envisioned.

I will post more on that soon.

Cheers folks.

Tough Weekend for Gaming

Ok...not only am I having a blast in Conan right now, Saturday the 14 is my pickup day for Resident Evil 5.

But...that is not all. Another game looms on the horizon...but, I better keep that on the straight and narrow for the time being.

Lets just say...this weekend, not only am I going to get to eat some of the best Indian food I have ever had (it is actually a "fusion" Indian, as they use certain ingredients not normally found in Indian cuisine...), but I shall reach gaming nirvana...

Oh MY!

BTW, on this Indian food thing...why can't I ever fix it to taste like the restaurants...that makes no sense to me. I follow every direction I have found, and it always is YUCK...must be some secret they do NOT tell..

Anyways. have a good weekend folks.

Age of Conan - Turmoil and a CEO buy up

What a wild day for Funcom.

Their 4th Quarter reports hit today with a shockwave of loss and dismay. There was good news hidden within, but it was hard not to look at their numbers and see pain!

First, for a brief synopsis, check out Broken Toys..

"Funcom announces $23 million loss last quarter based on $22 million depreciation of Age of Conan expenses, CFO resigns."


This of course started a riot on the forums as the "Fail" train took off in full force.

Disaster I tell ya!!!

The next announcement was of the current CFO leaving. Actually leaving for another "industry"...WTF? First Gaute Godager, the original game director leaves gaming, now the CFO!

But, in other news, revenues were up 6.8 million compared to the previous quarter, and customer retention is now stable, and players are staying subscribed longer and playing more often..(bet it has to do with...oh I don't know...being able to run longer than 2 hours...)...now, if we could read MORE players coming back...maybe next time.

Anyways, as pundits of the 13 year old persuasion were throwing financial's around like they knew what it all meant (I am 46 and I sure don't...lol), the stocks closed today with a surprise announcement..

"The CEO of FunCom, Trond Arne Aas, bought 250 000 FC stocks before Oslo stock exchange closed today."

WHA!!!!

Why would he buy such a huge amount of stocks unless he knows something we don't? I researched why a CEO would buy stocks and it all boils down to "confidence". Hmmm.

Does the main dude finally think he has let all the riff raff go, and now they can actually be a better company?

It was announced that AoC launched in Poland and Russia today (the Polish version was bought out by none other than CD Projekt...the awesome company who made The Witcher)...maybe they are seeing good results there?

All I know is this just all became really weird...and to top it off...I racked up an amazing 47 hours last week in game..



I have not done that since my GW days way back...

The latest patch introduced some weird bugs, so I am praying those get fixed, and hopefully DX10, then a winback program. AoC COULD actually get it's act together..

Hope so, as I am having too much fun to quit (at least until Resident Evil 5 comes out in 3 weeks, then I will take a rest and cut back on my time...)

Cheers

Resident Evil 5 - An exercise in adding realism

If any Horror Survival (HS) game has tried to advance it's own genre, it is Resident Evil.

For the longest time, each HS title has kept a locked camera perspective or a combat system that sucked beyond all get out.
Silent Hill, Alone in the Dark and the original RE's all had systems in place to make you wish that you could throw your controller out the window.
I cannot count how many times I have screamed at my screen as I died another cheap death.

Then RE4 came along. With a new angle for the camera (behind the shoulders) and a combat system that was more forgiving with tons of ammo and health all around. The control of how you lived or died was handed back to the player.
Throw in an RPG like system of upgrades and ability to buy the stuff you could not find...RE4 is truly a new age in HS gaming.
Thanks to RE4, we got Deadspace, which has proven that a Western influenced HS title can work, and quite well. Using the same formula of RPG style upgrades, better camera control, and less of the "cheap" deaths due to sneaks, etc., the genre is coming pretty far.
Silent Hill tried to fix their game with the last release, Homecoming, with full visual controls to allow you to see all around you, and combat that worked...most of the time.
Alone in the Dark also tried some new formulas (but still kept locked camera's, and the combat is slightly wonky to be almost buggy).

RE4 still wins hands down.

Now we have Resident Evil 5. In comparison, it holds a lot of the "in the moment" style of action like Deadspace. What this means is that you do not have a pause to get an item type of gameplay that most HS titles still cling to.

Released this week for XBL and PS3, the demo gives an idea of the hectic "OMG" moments that a real person would be dealing with as they try to survive being attacked by these new forms of "zombies".
And it has been frustrating as you play the demo.
For the player who is use to fast turns in 3rd person like Gears of War...it is not here. Standardized controls like Left Trigger, Right Trigger, reloads, etc...not here.
RE5 went with it's own control scheme which can be frustrating, but also manageable if you PRACTICE.

This is what I had to do with RE4 and their unusual scheme. Same for RE5.

After several play throughs, I found one scheme that worked for me.

But, then comes the Inventory system. This is definitely something Deadspace did right.
In Deadspace you could assign weapons to slots. Then using the D-Pad, select weapons as needed (for instant switching). Then all of the "heals" could be put in one spot for instant access.
RE5, everything is wherever you put it, and you need to align items as you get them for easier access. That or be prepared to die horribly and many times.
The issue is the menu screen comes up with a press of the Y button (on the 360). Then you use DPad or the Analog stick to move to an item. Then hit A to bring up a menu to Equip, Give or Throw away that item.
So, basically, we have 3 steps...Y, A, A to open, select and equip.

BAD!!!!

Think of heals. Y to open the menu, find the item (lets say you picked up an herb earlier, and it just went into the menu, so you do not know where it will be), move to that item, hit A, "USE?"..YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS....hit A......OMG, I am dead!

Frustration ensues.

So, as I played, I experimented with some options.

A unique aspect to the game is the AI driven partner. In this game, your partner is not some whiny girl you have to save...nope, this is some badass mama (who is HOT also...yum), that can also be controlled by another player...
She is a good shot, and heals you when needed.

So started the test. I would give her specific ammo. So she got all the handgun ammo, except maybe one or two loads for me. I took all the machine gun and rifle ammo.
I then started to give her all the herbs (which you can take back at anytime you have a breather).

But, there is no doubt that as a healbot, she proved very effecient. As long as we stayed close, we were good.

Another aspect that you learn is using various "hotspots" to hold yourself in as you are taking out mobs. Like GoW, cover is important (though not used as well).
Several burned up and gutted buses proved to be life savers, as the mobs used the doorways to enter, funneling in single file for easy removal from my weapons.
Backing yourself into corners helped somewhat, yet also proved to be death tombs, so you had to be careful.
Tactically the game is actually proving to be fun after the intial "OMG these controls suck".

This game is definitely on the "MUST BUY" as we the family being RE fanatics, must have it. Even with the frustrations (which seems to be a keyword when you associate Horror Survival with gaming...) I think the gorgeous graphics, and tense world of this lastest outing will be awesome.

I am sure the main game will give you more time to learn the in's and out's first, as the demo really throws a TON of stuff at you...difficult for sure. But, satisfying when you beat the level.

Just gotta learn those controls...ARGH!