Articles tagged with: Videogames

I'm lagging behind my proposal of painting more, but I cannot fight arriving tired from work. Tired enough to prefer not to paint, but not so exhausted to leave the computer out, so I've been playing some videogames as of lately. Related with this blog usual topics (RPGs, Warhammer, etcetera.), I've played three games.

First and most interesting to me, Space Hulk: Deathwing, an FPS in the line of Left4Dead or Warhammer: Vermintide, both with singleplayer and cooperative play. This has been the big revelation for me: I preordered it due to a discount, and while it is true that performance-wise it needs some fine-tunning (lags when there are too many enemies at once even with a high end 3D card), it still looks awesome and the developers and designers must be fans of Warhammer 40,000 because the scenarios, lore and details of the maps are simply amazing. It won't please everybody, but I loved it and just finished the campaign, so I'll now try multiplayer before another pass to try to obtain all relics and read all logs.

Then, I also recently finished Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, new entry in this saga and the second game since Square Enix reboot. I did loved the previous game (Deus Ex: Human Revolution) because of how much it redefined the original game in such a pleasing way, so maybe I had too high hopes for this new entry. While certainly it is a good game, it has two issues for me:

• It is very very similar to previous one. This is good but also bad, as there are not many surprises here
• The story and some secondary characters sometimes feel cut, uncomplete, as if fragments were left for DLCs/expansions. I don't own any DLC so is just a theory, but I felt when I finished there were a bunch of unclosed or unsatisfying "branches"

It is also very demanding regarding 3D power, and while the scenarios are soo beautiful and insanely detailed cyberpunk cities, sometimes really gets sluggish.

And lastly, my most mixed feelings go to Fallout 4. After more than 70 hours on Fallout 3, all its DLCs and some custom mods, I was so happy to have a new entry and truth be old, I've grown tired of it even before finishing the main story arc. Yes it has settlements and NPCs inhabiting them; yes you build from furniture and food to weapon and armor modifications; yes the map is big and more detailed and alive and full of missions; yes everything is prettier and more realistic. But it all feels yet quite similar to Fallout 3, as a mixture of mods with a graphics bump and some (a bit dull so far) story of a lost child and you of course frozen in a vault for some years and then waking up. I will come back to it in the future to play more and try to finish the plot, but it broke my expectations on the wrong side.

Maybe I'm just growing tired of playing same sagas and need to switch to new IPs with unkown settings and new lore, but it's getting dissapointing playing new entries of existing game worlds...

Posted on 2017-01-13

Reordering my books I found and re-read The Art of Mass Effect, released on 2007 just after the first videogame in the Mass Effect universe.

Along its pages we'll mostly find colour illustrations, a few pencil sketches and some CGIs and actual game screenshots. There are some "multi step" drawings (from pencil to final results) but not too many. The main themes are scenarios, ships/vehicles and characters.

Being an art book not much else can be said. If you love the Mass Effect universe and lore this is a great source of inspiration. The first game, despite its defects, was a great experience for me and even now I think is the best one regarding story (the series went more into action although the visuals got really amazing), and this book evocates those experiences.

Fans of the game and people seeking really cool sci-fi drawings will find here what they seek.

Posted on 2017-01-03

This past months I've been publishing almost only comic and book reviews, but I am actually doing more things related with miniatures and RPGs. First of all, I've been playing videogames more frequently; Steam sales and offers plus some awaited releases made me spend most spare time either reading or playing. Now that I've finished some games, I'm slowing the pace as I want to do more things, but my currently installed games say a lot about what I'll focus on. As can be seen in the following picture, I bought from an offer the Warmachine Tactics videogame, I was curious and I always welcome turn-based strategy games... but I haven't yet tried it so can't say how good or bad it is.

I still have some games pending finishing, including some really long ones like Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2 and Grim Dawn, but no need to hurry. I'm focusing one or two non-GW games at a time only, and sometimes I throw into the mix an arcade or console game. Lately Games Workshop is doing a great job on PC regarding licenses, and I've deleted from my PC classics like Space Marine or Dawn of War II, both of which I've finished multiple times, to not overflow, but I really like having so many options to play digitally. I've also preordered the incoming Space Hulk: Deathwing and will do the same with Dawn of War III as soon as it is possible. Exciting times ahead!

Regarding miniatures, I've assembled every pending miniature I had and base primed a lot, but didn't painted much until recently. Now I am painting, mostly:

• Imperial Knight: Only remains a few details and the base decoration (dead chaos space marine bits) and the decals
• Rogue Trader era Space Marine: I found this miniature ordering an old box. While it is hard to highlight it with my crappy skils and the mini's lack of detail, I'm working on it
• Nagash: A while after it came out, I bought the new awesome Nagash figure plus some undead warriors to decorate the base, but it was waiting (not even fully assembled) for me to decide to paint it. I started last week by priming it and right now I'm paiting the spirits, but my goal is to focus on fully painting it before starting with another mini. And without taking months to do it.

I might also retake painting Necrons, as they are quite easy and fast to do, but not until the lord of the undead is done. And about other miniatures than Games Workshop's, I finished painting two small lead witches as a small gift for my girlfriend, one green and one violet. Nothing impressive but was good for a change.

And that's mostly all, I keep reading but right now still going through a lot of pending comics before retaking Horus Heresy novels.

Posted on 2016-09-16

After more than 1.5 years of wait, we PC games finally have the pleasure of being able to play GTA V in all its glory. I had already pumped some 20-something hours, maybe 30, in the XBox 360 version but now I aim for, if not a 100% completion, at least doing every mission and at least attempt every challenge. And oh boy, playing it for a second time feels just as great as if was new (I'm just more proficient with the controls, know a few tricks and remember how to complete most missions).

While I'm playing it, slowly, enjoying the story, trying to catch all the small details, the almost alive city, the animals, the pedestrians with their impressive artificial intelligence, the random chases, robberies, accidents or traffic jams... The world feels so alive that I can't but wonder if actually GTA can be played as an RPG, because it really feels like an RPG.

I'm the kind of videogame player that tries to maximize Final Fantasy character levels (except in those like FF VIII where enemies level along with you), the one that pumped dozens and dozens of hours on Fallout 3, finished all DLCs and got the explorer achievement (IIRC, exploring 100 different points of interest from the map). When I finished Elder Scrolls Oblivion, my character was so powerful I did all the main story arc almost in a speedrun. But the amount of things you can do in this GTA entry... is so amazing.

You can invest in stock options and alter the world to make them go up or down (e.g. invest in a car firm after destroying many cars to buy low, then destroy other firms so their price rises and sell your stocks), you can buy houses and fine-tune cars, buy clothes and each character has their own stats you can increase... you can even change the haircut or tatoos. World setting aside, it is quite similar to any Elder Scrolls game, and ages above the degree of customization you can do at most "action RPGs" like Diablo 3, which many times are quite linear and only the loot or the chosen skills actually "customizes" the character.

Here you can literally spend hours doing side-missions, travelling by cab or train, learning to fly planes, or even diving in search of UFO pieces. NPCs get scared if you follow them and might call the police or not. Steal a car and many things can happen, from them running to even taking out a gun and shooting you. So many variants in general that as I already said the world feels almost real. Hell, even the radio news reflect the latest events that have happened (of course all around you, but anyway adds a lot of inmersion).

So what makes an RPG so? Old school ones had lots of text, GTA has hours and hours of conversations, phone calls, sms and emails; RPGs have stats, GTA has them (even money and owned properties are separate for each character); Visual customization as said is present; Lore, NPCs and a credible world, more than present; Choices and side-missions, a lot of both. Free-roaming, more than any Final Fantasy title would dream about.

Yes, is not turn-based or pausable; No, you cannot fully customize the main characters but you can create online characters and there you have way more freedom... I am no expert in the subject, but I think many of the last years' so-called xxx-RPGs have way less right to use that acronym than other recent titles like Grand Theft Auto 5.

In the end, it's all about how you play, how you live the virtual setting created for your pleasure.

Note: Photos taken from Snapmatic uploaded trending photos, another clever idea from Rockstar: use the in-game phone to take photos (even selfies) and upload them so people mimic real-world Instagram.

Posted on 2015-05-06

Wow, this is so great! In a smart move after launching all Warhammer End of Times books and miniatures but before announcing "the new" , Warhammer 9th edition, and of course with the incoming Mordheim and Warhammer Vermintide videogames, it looks like Warhammer world might change, but the franchise is far from dissapearing.

Empire and Dwarfs versus Orks, Undead and chaos (at least Tzeentch) can be seen at the video, including "mighty beasts". Also the company behind, The Creative Assembly, are really good making strategy games and have a long story (15 years), so we can exppect a top-notch title (unlike the latest avalanche of mobile-based not-so-good-and-money-grabber titles).

This really got me excited, it's been quite a few years since we last had a Warhammer Fantasy strategy title...

Anyway, here's the nicely looking video:

Posted on 2015-04-23