Farewell THQ

Starting a new semester with a writing intensive course load has put me in the position of having little time to write for myself, and what free time I do have tends to go to PLAYING the games I want to talk about. Last I wrote I mentioned an Assassin-Type game compare-contrast and I still want to, but today I wanted to discuss something else.

Planetside 2 "They nerfed what I paid for!"

First post in a while I know :( I have been on break and enjoying it! Which has rendered me unable to take the time to post due to family and friends. Currently I've played Dishonored, Hitman: Absolution, and Assassin's Creed 3 so expect my next post to be a bit of compare and contrast of these three "super assassin" games. And on to today's topic, nerfing what I paid for!

With more and more games moving to the Free-to-play-but-you-can-spend-cash-to-have-more-fun model (not "necessarily" pay to win) a new common thread I am seeing are games in which one can unlock certain items/weapons/whatever-kills-people-in-this-game through gaining of experience...OR...by spending some cash. Some, like World of Camping Tanks/Planes allow you to buy specific alternatives that in the past often got preferential matchmaking and earned you more in-game money (but since that couldn't be traded it wasn't too big of an issue). Here we are in 2013 and I am playing Planetside 2, observing that every weapon in the game can be purchased with experience (often copious amounts required, from 100 to 1000 certs, with 1000 taking at least 10 or so hours of game-time to achieve, and that's being generous) or with Station cash, SOE's currency. So most players tend to use their certs on character upgrades (which can't be necessarily bought) and spend station cash to buy weapons (many, such as myself, having taken advantage of the recent Triple-Station-Cash day).

[PS2] CERTifiable

From the moment you open Planetside 2 until one day you uninstall, your ears will ring with the siren call of "Certs..." the magical currency in PS2 that makes Auraxis go-round. From the get-go you begin amassing certs to purchase everything from upgrades to new capabilities. It costs 10 certs to learn to use an Auraxian toilet. I wouldn't be surprised if eventually it costs 100 just to be able to logout. Certs are gained primarily through earning experience; so killing, maiming, reviving, assisting, hacking, capturing, rearming, sunbathing...basically everything you do in PS2 aside from breathing (costs 20 certs) earns you xp which earns you certs.

Planetside 2: The circle-zerg

So the past few weeks have been a whirlwind of holidays and law school finals, leaving me bereft of time to write anything meaningful or do much in the way of gaming. In that time I did take a shine to the newly released Planetside 2 and it occupied what breaks I allowed myself. SOE has conjured forth my nostalgic side and drawn me into the web of MMOFPS once more and I don't mind much. I loved Planetside, it was the first game I played with "MMO" at the front of its genre. Alas the game is far from perfect; the shift towards a F2P model has had some negative effects on the gameplay that I aim to address in a coming series of posts...the first of which, I call the "circle-zerg".

[GW2] Fraking Fractals

Despite the title I actually don't disdain the new Guild Wars 2 Fractal dungeon(s) all that much. A dungeon that is slightly variable each run and scales in difficulty and requires you to run it to access the higher difficulties? Sounds great!....on paper. In practice this runs into a few issues.

[GW2] A Karka in my back, or, "Seriously Arenanet?"

I've been the staunch defender of Arenanet...I've defended their choice of making the Halloween event video a one-time only affair on the grounds that it was a minor thing that everyone could then witness on Youtube...a non-interactive event. I defended their choice to have hard content on Halloween so long as it was not tied to a meta-achievement.

So while some people were expressing valid criticism, I didn't let it hinder my enjoyment. I still stand by my assertion that GW2 is a quality game.

Then they go and fuck me push even my limit.

Trouble with Binary choice

A decade and a half ago in the late 90's games such as Fallout and Planescape Torment released; among their accolades were the extensive dialogue trees that provided a sense of choice to the player with regards to how the story might play out. Each had varying degrees of success, but it was clear that your choices in any given conversation might effect that sub-story going forward; with some impacting the finale. Fast-forward to 2012 and we're cheering on games like Infamous, Mass Effect 3, and others simply for giving us the "paragon/renegade" options; the distilled, streamlined, and frankly, shallow, facsimiles of the systems that came before.