Articles tagged with: Videogames

I've been playing a lot Diablo 3 lately (up to the point that now I need to slow down before I burnout my desire to keep playing), and although I really like the Diablo series, I don't think they have too deep lore/setting.

My friend Jorge just gifted me for my birthday the recently released Book of Cain, which extends Diablo 3 lore by representing all the notes that Deckard Cain wrote and gathered during his years of research.

The truth is that you cannot make something brilliant if it isn't. The book indeed extends the lore a lot, not only linking the three videogames, but also providing the base of all the scenarios you will visit in the games, alongside all the characters, monsters, demons...

It is nicely presented, as if it were an old book, with side notes, remarks and really well done hand drawings of places, characters, sigils and monsters (the best part).

Around 2/3 of the book are about the eras before the first Diablo videogame, with all the angels and demons presented and detailed, so you definitely extend the game lore by reading the book (and then probably replaying the games).

While not too deep, if you liked the games (specially Diablo 2 and 3) you will enjoy the Eternal Conflict tales.

Posted on 2012-06-11

Tags: Books Videogames

Kickstarter.com is a nice fresh idea: You present a project, define what it will be, show some concept art, sketches or a video of somebody explaining it, and you define pledges and associated rewards. A simple pledge can be a copy of the new RPG book, or a copy plus t-shirt, or even being included in the book as a NPC!
Then you get funds directly from buyers, and they get their pledge when you finish. Is amazingly simply yet brilliant, and what I love most is t hat you no longer need middle-companies or distributors, so you get mor profit and less restrictions.

While there are some really cool projects about physical RPGs, custom dice or new expansions/modules for existing games, two computer RPGs have all my attention (and now a bit of my money ;)

Shadowrun Returns & Wasteland 2.

If you are a pen&paper RPG player and old enough, chances are high you at least have seen, read about or played Shadowrun. But if not, there is a nice 87 free PDF "primer" at the authors' website.

And about the original Wasteland... Let's just say that the original computer game was the inspiration for the Fallout series.

I'm pretty sure more cool games will appear, but this two ones are looking really promising.

Bonus: Legend of Grimrock has just been released a few days ago. The game is a tribute to the legendary Dungeon Master, and from a few hours of play I can say it's recommend for all old school CRPG lovers.

Posted on 2012-04-14

Tags: RPG Videogames

Electronic Arts recently launched the beta of C&C Tiberium Alliances, a typical "stragegy" management browser game, with small battles played like a simplified tower defense.

The game itself is quite boring and dull (I lasted around two days until leaving it for boredom), but I don't want to talk about the game itself.

A friend just sent me a Reddit link in which people have discovered that EA is directly ripping/stealing Games Workshop's Warhammer 40.000 tank models for the game.

And as an image is worth a thousand words, let me directly show you two:

(click on the images to see them full-size)

How many differences can you spot?

I've seen non-profit fan-made projects being shutdown or sued for much less "ip-violation", plus being EA the greedy ones they are... I would love to see them sued by GW.

Update: EA reply, with excuses of early model designs (curious then that they surfaced on the web if were discarded early ;) and remembering "the net" (maybe also GW?) that they distribute Warhammer Online. So probably nothing else will happen.

Posted on 2012-04-12

Tags: Videogames Warhammer 40000

For many years there has been a legend about Warcraft, that the first game of one of the best money-making machines franchises was in fact going to be originally the computer version of Warhammer, by Games Workshop.

Stories say that GW decided to cancel it (or decided to not do it) but Blizzard went on and released Warcraft: Orcs & Humans.

I've tried many times to hunt for reliable sources about this, not finding a single non-forum based comment/version/claim.

Well, today, reading a spanish PDF e-zine (Cargad! #10) I found an interview with Félix Paniagua, an ex-GW miniatures scuptor that claims the following (fragment on page 22):

Felix: [...] Did you knew that Warcraft was going to be Warhammer?

Interviewer: What?

Felix: The guys at Blizzard proposed Games Workshop to do a computer game based on Warhammer. Games Workshop said no, so Blizzard still continued with it and called it Warcraft. Games Workshop didn't took long to start being sorry [for the decision they took].

 

So, for me an ex-employee's claim is enough proof that this is actually true.

Posted on 2011-05-01

Tags: Videogames Warhammer 40000

Between work and now enjoying some half disconnected vacations (one week out of Spain, and soon a few more days off to a small village) Fallout New Vegas came out and I have just installed it but not even launched yet.

The reasons, mainly two apart from the vacations:

First, I want the game to become stable. Looks as it is plaged of bugs and I don't want them to spoil the experience if it is near as enjoyable as Fallout 3.

And second, because I wanted to finish all Fallout 3 DLCs and at least one or two more side-missions. I've finally done so and reached level 30 (with around 50 hours of playtime), and while I won't give my thoughts at the official DLCs here, I'll just say that if you don't own the game go run for the Game of the Year edition (which contains all of them), because they "fix" some things and offer some variety in quests.

Many people disliked Fallout 3 becoming an RPG FPS, but I've loved the setting. Ok, is not perfect and probably far from the depthness of the previous ones, but still has some magic touch that made me feel really inside that wasteland. Plus I've lived some really enjoyable quests and situations much more elaborated than in Oblivion.

I really think it is a great game, one that I will probably reinstall in the future and keep discovering new places and fullfilling new quests almost like the first day. In the end, what matters most is not what everybody says but what you feel when you play a game.

Fallout New Vegas, I hope you're up the expectations!

Posted on 2010-11-12

Tags: Fallout 3 Videogames