Redwolf's Journal (continued)

 I've had Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy sitting in my bought-but-not-played list for a while, so I finally got around to that. The gameplay is pretty much just okay. Exploration/traversal is a step above simply pressing forward, but there's not much in the way of real exploration. Combat involves a lot of running around and shooting with the rest of the team helping a bit, but mostly giving activatable abilities on cooldown. There just isn't really anything to elevate the gameplay, which is a bit sad. The story/characters are all great, though. This is not quite the MCU team, which may be a hurdle to overcome, but the charm and interplay is there. These GotG are a group, though still fairly new and still coming to trust one another as a family of sorts. The story builds up to a galactic threat from a very small incident with an unrecognized Soul Stone and the Guardians absolutely fail their way through much of it, but manage to be heroes in the end. The experience o...

So, I've already given some general impressions from partway through the game. What can I add after hitting the end credits? Most of the earlier thoughts remain. The animations are far from perfect, but didn't frequently bug me. The UI (whether managing inventory or navigating the cluster) is overly ponderous. Abilities and combat are fine and can even be pretty fun. Squadmates seem at least moderately useful to me - not as effective as I am, but they manage to keep enemies busy and finish them off on their own. Environments are pretty nice. The cast is reasonably varied and most story threads fairly interesting. There is a sense of exploration and discovery that's appropriate. I really wish the game has some sort of virtual firing range or something where you could test out weapons you hadn't yet purchased/researched/developed. I wanted to try a lot of researchable weapons, but several of those I did felt unsatisfactory for one reason or another, making them a was...

My simple verdict at the moment is: Needs work. I've entered a total of three matches with others so far. From worst to best: - I entered a match to find almost everyone down and after about ten seconds, I realized it was the final (extraction) wave and I had no clue where I was going. About one second later, the match ended in failure. - I entered a match in progress somewhere earlier with a ton of lag, and actually got disconnected after a minute or so. - I got in a match from the beginning. Everything performed well (except us new, low-geared players) and we got through several waves before all dying. One out of three is not so good in this sort of situation. I understand there aren't dedicated servers for multiplayer, so it's all peer-to-peer, but if there can't be some reasonable expectation of better performance, it's really not going to be worth playing.

I've been enjoying the game over the last week or so. I think I'm a bit over halfway through the story, though it's hard to tell without looking it up - and I don't want to do that. Hmm. Actually, I think I've managed to not look up and spoil myself on story or puzzles thus far. I've tried with a couple decisions, but failed to find immediate repercussion answers, so just made a call. The major critiques I've seen (buggy/bad animations and weak writing) have not been so prominent in my experience to bother me. Yes, there are some bad facial animations. Yes, I have seen enemies standing twenty feet in the air. Yes, there are a few cringe-worthy lines. But in my play, those have been infrequent and overlookable. A majority of the lines and animation are just fine. I've only hit one game-stopping bug, where the game got stuck in a transition after a dialog scene, but reloading and going through it again worked. The one criticism that I can agree fully wi...

Mass Effect Andromeda unlocks for regular play tonight at midnight (eastern). That's probably just enough time to create a character before I go to bed. Whee! Well, regardless, it has been on my mind of late. Heck, thanks to the commercials, I have Rag'n'Bone Man's Human in my head. While I've seen it said that Mass Effect is like a more recent Star Wars in terms of genre impact, I don't think I can go so far. Still, it is a pretty major series. Andromeda has caught a good bit of pre-release flack for wonky animations and iffy dialogue. Most of the time, this seems to be mentioned in the context of "sometimes it's good, sometimes it's fine, sometimes it's ridiculously bad." It's a presumably-valid criticism that I think I can live with. I'm still looking forward to the game and to seeing what they make of the setting and story with a new direction. I still don't really like the way the original trilogy closed out. ME3 as ...

Fury Road stunt doubles got married? That's kinda cool. E3 gears up. Ooo. Ahh. A remake of Final Fantasy VII? Fans have wanted that for well over a decade. I find myself less than enthusiastic that the time has actually come. Actually, the most interesting thing I've seen so far is the Mass Effect: Andromeda announcement. Mostly, I find it fascinating because it raises all sorts of questions about what happened after the original trilogy. Though the cynical part of me says it'll be glossed over or blurred rather than Bioware defining a canon ending and really exploring the repercussions. Clearly humanity has rediscovered viable FTL travel after the destruction of the mass relays, and even some way to travel to another galaxy. But there are some incredible narrative opportunities to exploring how society developed in the Milky Way after 1) life became techno-organic, 2) a benevolent-dictator Shepard-Reaper armada took over, or 3) all mechanical life (Reapers includ...

Another week. Thinking about... things, past and present, has had me feeling down much of the weekend. I'm still trying to shake that off. Getting early voting out of the way is a bit of a relief, though I'm still getting political phone calls. Grrr. And it sounds like my new boss has been hired, starting November 9th or so. Here's hoping for a painless transition. WoW Well, as a guild, we're still a bit fragmented, with people all over the place as far as what they're doing. On one end, we have someone coming back from marriage/honeymoon/RL stuff who's still level 85, and a few level 90's who are new (due either to not playing much or bouncing between alts). On the other hand, we have a couple people hitting up challenge modes and raids with people outside the guild. There's always some degree of tension between the people who want to go faster and those who don't. But, as I was pointing out to our guild leader, we aren't really "behi...

Well, let's see... WoW is still in a little bit of a lull overall. We did raid Saturday, and managed a successful run through most of Firelands - even got Elly her firecat-form staff from Staghelm fiiiinally. That puts us approximately 3 FL runs and a Ragnaros kill away from having a Dragonwrath. Well, that's not going to happen before MoP comes out next week, but it's still an attainable goal. Though our last attempts on Rags went poorly, if we can get all the essences from the other bosses out of the way, we can focus just on him, which would help. It'll be interesting to see what effect leveling has if we keep poking Cata raids - numbers will go up, but the conversion from ratings will tank. The Theramore's Fall scenerio was released Monday, a day earlier than I expected. I have mixed feelings. As an introduction to scenerios, it works okay: they're 3-person instances that can have various objectives and can be run without the usual group restrictions,...

No WoW last weekend, with people otherwise occupied. I'm not sure what our priorities are, though it was discussed there's just enough time left to complete Dragonwrath if we tackle Firelands every week (and get a Rags kill in there). With Deathwing down, that might be the most "worthy" goal. SWTOR has announced they're going free-to-play "this fall." No real surprise there with subscription numbers dropping and competition increasing (Secret World, soon to be Guild Wars 2 and Mists of Pandaria). Time to work out a different system of incentives to try to tap the larger F2P play base. We'll see how that works out for them. The lasted ME3 Multiplayer DLC added some a batch of interesting classes. The N7 Destroyer particularly interests me by being... sort of what a soldier class should have been, in my opinion: sturdy and gun-heavy. I can actually use a full-auto assault rifle with it without feeling like I'm flailing everywhere. I've ...

So... I addressed (with spoilers) the ending of Mass Effect 3 before . It created a big stir among the vocal players. Frankly, I don't even like the deus ex machina path Bioware took to the end of the trilogy, but the Crucible is so woven into ME3 that there's no taking it out without redoing the entire game. I wasn't looking for or expecting a perfect "and we baked you a cake" ending. Given that, I think my main problems with the ending were: 1) Several large, unexplained gaps that made me wonder what the heck I missed 2) No sense of achievements along the way (fate of the krograns and geth/quarians mainly) having any impact EA/Bioware released the "extended cut" endings for Mass Effect 3 in response (presumably) to all the fan outcry. We've known it was coming for a while and wondered if it could fix the problems (complaints were widespread enough that I think that's not too subjective to say) with the original. Throughout it all, I just ca...

Wrrf. Gold difficulty on ME3 multiplayer is rough. I lucked out last time. Trying for the individual goal to get a commendation pack this weekend, I entered probably half a dozen gold matches before actually succeeding at the goal: a full extraction. Of the others, one was a partial and the others were outright failures at some stage. On the other hand, I feel like I can hold my own pretty well on silver now, though I still find silver/gold matches to be something of a crapshoot. Depending on map, random objectives, and other players, it isn't hard to get into a position that pretty much just isn't winnable by any one factor. After a weekend off, we got back into raiding on WoW. There still seems to be a little tension over who's on the roster, but no bitching was brought to me, at least. We prodded Dragon Soul again. Morchok is straightforward - we've been able to do that fight for a long while. I believe this was our first real attempt at Yor'Sahj, and he went d...

Suddenly, the weekend feels crowded. I'll probably put in 4-6 hours in WoW , depending on what happens Saturday night. The buff in Dragon Soul is up to 15% (20 next week), so we probably could make headway there, but I doubt many have studied the fights in months, some people may prefer to work on Ragnaros, and any progress toward Dragonwrath takes more time in Firelands. Plus Me3 is running a multiplayer event this weekend and the individual reward requires completing a run on gold difficulty through to successful extraction. That could take twenty minutes. Or a lot of twenty minutes(es?). I've only done one or two matches on silver, jumping into gold with a public group sounds daunting from all I've read. If that one proves too difficult, though, I'll probably give up. I'd like to unlock/upgrade an N7 weapon (I love my Valiant 1 already), but it isn't worth too much grief. And GW2 is running their first "open" beta weekend. I've played a cha...

I think last weekend may have unduly gotten my hopes up in WoW. We only had a handful of people show up this past Saturday, so no further raiding attempts. We ran a few dungeons, at least. That, coupled with a funk regarding Furryfaire after watching friends go at it (again) on Thursday night left me very "meh" toward my usual weekend forms of entertainment. On the other hand, I continue to play ME3 multiplayer from time to time, so maybe I should put forth some more detailed thoughts about that... When I first heard the game would have multiplayer, I really didn't care. When I heard about the impact it has on the single-player game ending (though it turns out the difference between the "best" ending and what you access at a lower EMS total seems minimal), I was offended. But as I neared the end of my primary play-through, I decided I'd bite the bullet and try it. Surprise, surprise - not only was it bearable, I actually enjoyed it. It's more o...

Feh. I actually decide I want the paladin PVP set for transmogrification and start converting valor points only to find the weekly conquest point cap applies to converted points too. Cuuurses! So I have to wait a couple weeks to be able to get the helm and shoulders, which are really the distinct pieces. I continue to run a few missions in ME3 multiplayer here and there. I feel with a decently-leveled character, I could play on silver - I'm starting to grasp combos, have a familiarity with the maps, and have a pretty good idea how to handle most objectives. Unfortunately, I'd still be at the mercy of the random grouping. I might see how that works at some point. Maybe. Should you rent or own? It depends. If you don't have a relatively stable income, getting a mortgage to own may be out of the question entirely. If it is an option, you have to start looking at finer and finer details. The more you can put down immediately and the less you're borrowing, the better ...

I was a little bit surprised at the turnout on WoW Saturday night, even if it didn't really materialize until later than our "normal" raid time. Ran a few dungeons, actually delved into Firelands with 10 guildmates... The warm bodies were there, though we would need some further polish to get Beth'Tilac down. Or at least we'd need to get through it without one of the two active healers disconnecting (I wish we'd tried three-healing that last couple times). I've poked at the Mists of Pandaria beta a little bit. I don't really see myself playing a panda main, and... my paladin kit feels seriously pared down. Not sure whether I like that. I poked on GW Sunday long enough to do their April 1st quest. Cute little play on Terminator 2, I suppose, with a continuity-breaking (at least in my mind) run in with your "past self" that reminds me of the Bronze Dragonshrine quests in WotLK. I also put in an unusual amount of time playing Mass Effect ...

While playing the game, I've been pondering a particular aspect that I find interesting. I still can't decide if it's ingenius or simply the result of necessity. Maybe a little of both. One of the big points about the Mass Effect series was the determined effort to insert choices that have consequences. While we're still a long way from having the freedom to influence a video game world in the way that roleplayers can with a GM at the table, the series did a realtively good job. Perhaps the best yet. And while in some cases that means choices about races or factions, seeing exactly how Bioware did this was most apparent (and where it made the most impact for me was) with the main cast. At a gut-reaction level, I've been disappointed that only a few of the squadmates (and romance options for that matter) can carry over all three of the games as such. If I'm counting correctly, only Garrus and Tali are squad-possibilities through all three and they're not...

When writing a big story, it's surely a challenge to get things started. But it's even harder to make a "good" ending to a series that's been building up for a while. Even just a trilogy can have a lot of threads and a good ending seeks to tie up loose ends, to provide closure. It can be brutally difficult to live up to expectations. And then there endings that may mean something to someone, but are a big WTF?! to everyone else (see Evangelion). So how'd Bioware do with the Mass Effect trilogy? Eh... ME3's been stated as the final chapter, and it looks it. The beginning sets up the Reaper invasion of Earth, which I had doubts about, but that wasn't as bad as I thought. It's pointed out that the last Reaper harvest took something like 300 years to finally wipe out the Protheans, and the Reapers aren't simply killing everyone, so building up while a resistance force holds out makes a certain amount of sense. Putting most of the galaxy's ...

Probably the first of a handful of Mass Effect 3-based posts. We'll start with a relatively brief overall review. Gameplay - much like ME2 with lots of talking and cover-based shooter action areas. Heavy weapons only exist as temporary things picked up in the field (a flamethrower in one area and the Cain makes an appearance). There are a few gun turrets to provide a little novelty and some "boss fights" that break up the routine in one way or another. No tank/hovercraft this time around, though. Searching systems for war assets is no better than scanning for resources the last time around - boring at best. I even poked multiplayer a little, and it wasn't bad - though I think our of four matches, we didn't complete one without at least one person dropping out partway through and getting them started is difficult sometimes. There are some difficult choice, but I still enjoyed playing diplomat in the galaxy once again, getting to resolve some of the long-standin...

Digging the game in general. Combat feels a little more challenging than 2, but not unfun. Weapon mods are kind of neat. Neat to see lots of references to past choices, though I can step back and see the degree of change between them is probably minimal. Best stuff: Character interactions, definitely. Talking with former crew (and watching them bantering with each other in some cases) is so awesome itself I find myself spending more time talking than doing. Worst stuff: Scanning systems for assets is kinda boring. I'm feeling the difference between the way the story seems to want you to play (Quick! Save Earth now!) and the way the game seems to want you to play (Take time to gather assets and make friends so your chance of success at the end is better!) - it's a little jarring.

I picked up and started Mass Effect 3 last night, which seems to have led to some strange dreams. The game: I've only just barely gotten to the point of controlling the Normandy after the set prologue levels, as I didn't have it in me to stay up late even to play more. As I worried in the demo, the intro sets a shadow of pacing over everything even though the game sort of seems to want you to explore. There's no particularly justification this time for being able to choose a new look/build for an imported character - function over form. I've already been reunited with several figures from previous installments, which is one of the great charms of the series. I've had several previous exploits referenced and the plot of "Arrival" wasn't shoved down my throat. Most of the repercussions from the past seem to only have subtle effect so far, but the game does definitely make me feel like it remembers what I've done even if the impact isn't obviou...