Articles tagged with: Videogames

I recently read The Art of Tom Clancy's The Division because I'm playing the game from time to time; I got it for free a while ago and, despite initially discarding it, the truth is that, reality aside (even the most basic enemies are bullet-sponges), it is an entertaining shooter-looter (with tiny bits of RPG elements) and the setting and visuals is really great (and yes, the virus outbreak and "fighting against it" idea is one way for me to cope with our still ongoing pandemic).

And that's why I decided to grab the art book. A bit below 200 pages, with heavy graphical content and not much text (sometimes with terrible contrast, making it hard to read!), it is an amazing gallery of not only the final game locations, enemies and player clothing (there are tons of customization options), but also shows sketches, different iterations and discarded ideas both for characters and scenarios.

I am biased as I tend to love these kind of books, even for games that initially you'd think are not such a big deal, but one thing that Ubi Soft does really well is crafting incredibly detailed and ultra-realistic settings for their games. So much that they feel "more real than reality". The game is so full of details that I often stop to appreciate them before getting back into action. And with this book, you can get a bunch of nice examples without fear of getting killed by an enemy 😆

Posted on 2022-01-01

Lately I'm a bit bored of just playing games, I miss a bit doing something more creative. I also miss my miniatures. So when I learned about a new game, Talespire, that allowed you to setup and play "boardgame" scenarios as if you had real painted miniatures (with amazing graphics), I wanted to give it a try.

I learned about the game by a blog post, once it was already available at Steam (it's in Early Access), but researching for this post I found that it comes from a successful Kickstarter. Both sources are a good starting point, but check the Steam early access trailer to see why I fell in love with it:

You easily add tiles, walls, props (furniture, decoration) and entities (human-controllable miniatures, NPCs and monsters), save it (everything works online), and then can play, alone or with friends (no AI, though), in a turn-based fashion. It struck me both as how simple it appeared, and really is, you decide how far you want to go adding detail. But the visuals are incredible, it really looks as if you had real high-quality painted miniatures. The die roll realistically, music and sound effects help immerse, and special effects and "atmospheric controls" (time of day, weather, and other visual and lighting conditions) allow to create the perfect setting no matter if you are exploring dark sewers, a dungeon or a mountain on a sunny day.

I encourage anyone interested to read the terminology guide and the player's guide to properly understand what you can (and can't) do. For example, the combat system is as good as many normal computer RPGs, with 4 stats, combat resolution, initiative-based turns and other tweaks, but it is not Dungeons & Dragons. I find it a great balance between a not-totally-freeform game engine (like Vassal) and Baldur's Gate.

Oh, and remember what I mentioned before about the Kickstarter campaign? You should check it out as it hints of things to come later, like character editing (at minimum changing the colors), or a Cyberpunk/sci-fi setting which looks as amazing as the main medieval one (and exactly what I thought, "I'd love to have a Cyberpunk 2020 equivalent!").

This is an example screenshot I took exploring an amazing castle uphill I downloaded from the community:

This was my first experiment, a small tavern made in a few minutes just after finishing the (in-game) tutorials:

And my last screenshot is a work in progress of a bigger experiment, a HeroQuest board. Need to learn to play with tile sizes to see if I can keep corridors same size as the original, while having cool walls and room dispositions, but still I think end up quite similar:

Of course the game is meant to be played with other people, but for now, to me it is a great way to relax assembling maps. I can pick any map from an adventure, or even cool randomly generated maps. Having your friends purchase the game to be able to play the campaigns can be a handicap, but the game is cheap, way less than any boardgame these days.

Before I finish, I wanted to also share a few great resources for inspiration and maps:

• Tales Tavern: Official website, acting both as a hub of player-created content, news, and tutorials (see next point)
• Tales Tavern Training Grounds: An official list of resources
• TaleSpire reddit: All things related with the game, from news to newest creations by people.

Posted on 2021-05-01

I don't yet have my miniatures nor paints, so hobbies have been more on the reading and playing videogames side.

Fiddling with emulation I ended up starting again Zelda: Breath of the Wild (this time the WiiU version). The game is a masterpiece and a second playthrough is great both because of the amazing mechanics and story, and because of the memories it brings back. A nice extra is that I was able to finally finish the Master Trials DLC, which I desisted on the Nintendo Switch .

I have also finished Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition - Future Connected, the DLC that the Switch version brings. It provides with a few hours of extra content, it advances the story a tiny bit (set in the near future after the main events), but it is too cheesy and the changes in combat, mainly the Nopon prospectors specials, is more of an excuse to force you to do all side-quests than a real amazing mechanic. But hey, was free, had new enemies and items and was good enough to be worth investing time on it.

I try to mix in a few old games now and then, as there are many old jewels and classics I wish to play. A really old adventure with RPG aspects I just finished is Veil of Darkness. While the RPG components are just basic stats and die rolls in combat, the game at least attempted to be something more than a mere isometric adventure. The results... are mixed.

And finally, I'm playing the one game everyone is talking about this 2020 xmas: Cyberpunk 2077. A game that makes people go to the extremes: either you love it, or you hate it. I'm not going to enter discussions about its state, I'm playing the PC version and while it has some bugs I'm having no serious issues and had actually worse "launch experiences" with GTA IV and V, Red Dead Redemption 2, Fallout 3, Fallout New Vegas, to name a few.

So, into the game... It is an insanely ambitious game, trying to combine mechanics from so many places: Deus Ex, GTA V, Dishonored, Borderlands, Fallout 3 & 4, Skyrim... And while due to a non-trivial amount of bugs it's not yet there, I'm having a great time with it. Doing very frequent quick-saving as it is true twice quests glitched, and the physics can go crazy, but still it feels almost alive (if you try to role-play and ignore the glitches, the city is really awesome).

You have hacking, pretty much like Fallout (mini-game based), but with more choices than a Deus Ex: camera hacking, pinging to detect other devices in the network, distracting enemies, opening doors... And the experience levels are dual: you get general experience, level up and can increase basic attributes, but then have lots of perks, which also live inside sub-skills and those skills increase by using them (shooting handguns, running, moving stealthy, and the like).

The main storyline has incredible quests, they really stand out, but then side quests are sometimes really funny. Overall, once bugs are solved it would be a great game, but if the creators add more stuff (content cut from previous videos or promised but not present), it can be an incredible cyberpunk setting videogame.

Posted on 2020-12-18

We recently moved to a new house (twice in a month!) far from home (but still in Spain), so life's been busy outside of fantasy and sci-fi worlds.

I played some Diablo (cheap legaly available and with Hellfire expansion applied) and, while for short bursts is still awesome, it's also true that I've played it so much that gets repetitive. And I don't feel like levelling up a barbarian Hellfire character from scratch.

I tried to play Diablo II also, but it has aged way worse than the first part. The sockets, gems and crafting system is still great and makes the game last almost forever, but graphically looks too "wrongly pixelated", probably the pseudo-3D effects looked cool back in the day (although I remember toggling them off) but now makes it feel worse than the predecessor.

Keeping with the trend, I played a few hours of Path of Exile. It feels different enough to invest real time on it, and levelling based on your item gems and an insane skills tree means you can go as deep as you want with specific character builds, but the graphics are a mixed bag of incredible 3D effects & models here, amiss 3D models there. Shopkeepers all look like giants, character visual customization is very limited (probably tied to selling cosmetics as the main game income, which is free to play by the way) and playing with graphic settings at max sometimes it's hard to discern enemies, the path to follow, etc. Here the expertise of Blizzard in Diablo III is apparent, both are fully 3D but Diablo simply looks better and more defined.

And lastly, I played 20-something ours of Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor Martyr. I'm glad I bought it discounted (and without DLCs), because while the idea isn't bad, the implementation is a) really boring and b) again 3D modelling is a hit-and-miss. It annoyed me the most that your character is way too small compared with every single enemy, from Space Marines (which are huge and ok, some inquisitors have human-size, but mine looks as big as a Space Marine in videos) to imperial guard or renegades, even compared with other Inquisitors. But was also dull and repetitive, there are lots of enemies (all sorts of chaos demons & humanoids, imperial guard, space marines, dark eldar, ...), a few vehicles, huge bosses... but it's mostly killing all that moves, and when isn't (protecting someone or something) the fear of losing the mission weights more than the fun factor (they tend to not hold up much). It has story, lots of missions an nice lore and voice acting, but I got tired of it quite fast.

My main achievement these past months has been playing and finishing Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition. Around 50 hours poured in (and still pending finishing the Future Connected extra missions), while I prefer Xenoblade Chronicles 2 gameplay, the first one is also quite fun and the story is, apart from deeper than you'd imagine at first, quite engaging and interesting. It's one of those games you finish and say "wow, now I have to digest all this and maybe play it again knowing what I know". It features a New Game+ mode so I'll probably come back to it in the future. JRPGs tend to have the classic level grinding moments, but here is not so steep, mostly following the story and doing the "main side quests" (there are tons of quests) you'll level up accordingly to the expected enemies and bosses.

So, no painting and no real RPGs, but for now computers compensate for it with CRPGs.

Posted on 2020-10-26

Finished

Stonekeep: An old PC title I finished once but so long ago I wanted to replay. The UI, runes and NPC interactions are still quite cool, but the game itself gets a bit boring in later levels, instead of exciting and with scarier enemies. I would even dare to say it feels rushed on its final chunks (some of the late enemies are ugly and a bit crappy). Still, overall a great experience.

System Shock: With a remake on its way, maybe I should better have waited, but on the other hand I've felt "the original experience" (well, the enhanced edition one, but it is just minor tweaks). An immersing game, great for its era and with an intriguing setting, lots of tension and decently sized (not too long, not too short). The graphics really feel outdated, up to the point that I lowered the resolution to 800x600 to feel it "equally pixelated", but still enemy sprites are chunky and need some imagination. The maps can also get tricky to navigate, it's best to memorize your path as you go because the space is so packed that sometimes you look at a map and can't even make how to reach a certain elevator or door.
Having it freshly finished I can say that the remake looks really faithful but at the same time awesome in the visual upgrades aspect (enemies, cameras, and overall lighting and textures are spot on).

Ongoing

Diablo III: It seems I can't quit it. While not playing as much any more, I'm still from time to time farming all companion pets, using one of my secondary characters, the barbarian, to also improve a bit his equipment.

Final Fantasy VI: To some "the best Final Fantasy ever", so I wanted to see why so much praise. I'm a dozen hours in, and my remarks are that it feels "more japanese" than future titles would be (by mixing a quite serious plot with jokes and flirting between characters), the mechanics and subtleties are indeed more advanced than other games (from "special battles" that require special actions/items, to puzzles and minigames), and for an SNES title really good looking. I'm still not as impressed as I was with FFVII and FFVIII but I know enough to wait until story progresses further.

Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition: My main time sink for the following month(s), I poured +70 hours in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 (and have pending a New Game+ run) and I don't expect less in this title. Gameplay is similar to its sequel but some mechanics are new, small tweaks make for a more streamlined experience (not needing to return to the giver to complete trivial quests is nice), and what's most important, the story is completely new, just in the same universe.

On Hold

Pillars of Eternity: One of my first Kickstarted backings, I had forgotten it and decided to play it on my Linux laptop. It is great and brings me fond memories of Baldur's Gate with its similar look and feel, the story is interesting and the gameplay is great. I simply paused playing it because is insanely long: Any quest can involve half an hour on its own, your watcher powers translate, among other things, into tons of text when you feel and see people's past, and even the interesting Stronghold maintenance, evolution and quests "side game" can take quite some effort. I think this game is like a good wine, best consumed in calm, spaced intakes. If not, can be a bit overwhelming, to me at least.

Zelda: A link to the Past: I feel really bad, as the game is great, but I reached the Dark World and it feels a bit tiring, especially since in Zelda: A Link Between Worlds There's an evolution and I also felt it dull sometimes.
I'm sure I'll finish the game in the future, is just not the appropriate moment.

Posted on 2020-06-09