wow gold

A survey of 2007s role playing games

wowgoldeu — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 15:48:55 +0000

Last year was a fairly interesting one for RPG fans. Some of the biggest names in the genre finished their PS2 swan songs long ago, and went off in search of new platforms. This left 2007 as a year for new ideas and lesser known series to take root and grab the hearts and money of fans. 2007 may not have had a big new Final Fantasy, but perhaps that is a good thing, as it allowed these other games to stand out, rough edges and all. While it comes a bit late, the following is an assessment of some of 2007’s biggest RPGs from both Chris (vl’s resident RPG expert) and Christian (who continues to look for the genre’s masterpiece). We also included FF12 in the mix. It may be a bit old to us modern folk living in 2008, but it is such a major departure from Square’s usual offerings that it deserves a bit more discussion on the site.

Christian
In terms of introducing ideas, be they bad or good, Persona 3 makes some subtle suggestions that are nevertheless incredibly potent. The entire game revolves around the idea that a person is made by their choices, and so every single decision you make likely has an effect on your character’s stats or Persona. RPGs often like giving us choices, but they are usually only an illusion (for example, you simply may not be able to say “no”), or are nullified by allowing the player to earn the rewards of all the choices through means of brute force leveling and exploration. When you do something in Persona 3, it sticks, and there’s nothing you can do about it except reload the game. I absolutely love this concept, as it makes each playthrough a little different depending on what you do, and also makes you feel like you are playing the role by investing in this character.

Chris
Persona 3 is my favorite RPG on the PS2, and for good reason. It’s not that it does everything well - in fact, it’s often repetitive, somewhat slow, and occasionally downright unfair. What it does do right, however, is what so many games do wrong: it doesn’t have one aspect that really sucks.

Persona 3
The battle system is easy to learn, yet throws the occasional curveball at you to get you thinking. Only the main character can change his persona (which affects the three As: attributes, affinities and abilities). By the same token, he is also the only one who can be directly controlled. It’s a refreshing simplification after the earlier games, which involved too much management in battle. This comes at some expense of control, but it is worth it.

The plot has a gradual buildup, but the gaps are filled with steady side-plots and well-done characters. When a game gets me to care about a nameless taxi driver, it really says something. Far more questions than answers are to be had early on, which can get somewhat frustrating, but as the plot begins to unravel, the wait feels very much worth it. As Christian pointed out, even the silent character is very well done, as rather than being simply a guy who is there, you get to make decisions left and right for him, many of which feel quite natural.

As a bonus, if you’re one of those people who waited before buying, Atlus has granted you an unusual reprieve: P3’s expansion pack FES, once thought to remain Japan-only, has been released stateside. It even includes the original game for a total price of $30 (a sight better than the $70 you would normally buy it off eBay for).

P3 also realizes just how shitty RPG combat can be, which is why battles are only one aspect of the experience. Adding in the high school/social/story/dating aspects to Persona 3 makes for a varied experience that never tries to drag you down or wear you out. As any DnD fan would know, roleplaying can mean more than fighting and rolling dice. Persona 3 gets this, and we are better off for it.

I have sadly not finished Persona 3, though I know it is not the game’s fault but my own. I smile every time I boot it up, and I always watch the intro video. The reason I can’t push farther into it is because years of playing other jRPGs have trained me to think that the only way to play this genre is the OCD way. There simply is no way to see everything in P3 in one playthrough. That’s fine and dandy, but I am constantly afraid of being screwed over. What if the choices I made were the wrong ones? What if I find myself grossly underpowered when I get to the end of the game? There is a time limit after all, and so I will be unable to grind. More than a few RPGs have put me in such compromising situations, and no, none of them were roguelikes. I know Persona 3 isn’t tricky. It is meant to be balanced enough that it can be beaten in many ways. But I constantly wish to fire up an FAQ and see what I “should” be doing, and I refuse to sully the experience this way. P3 wants to be a pleasure, and I am trying to make it into work. Thanks Square.

Rogue Galaxy
Christian
I was anticipating this one more than any other RPG in recent memory. Too bad it did not live up to its potential. It had so many good ideas, such as its item synthesis system and load free combat. After the initial wow factor, it all begins to fall apart. The combat gets tedious, and making new weapons and learning skills will cause you to farm item drops as you would in an MMO. Rogue Galaxy is a lot like Dark Cloud 2 (items, monotonous dungeons, etc.), including having most of its major issues. Not a bad RPG, as it doesn’t stray terribly far from the mold, but it wasn’t nearly bold enough for my liking. At the very least they could have made the space pirates actual pirates and not a bunch of do-gooders.

Chris
Rogue Galaxy mashes together every anime and video game cliche it can and ends up with something so derivative you have to either love it or hate it, but its plot and characters are not really the focus of the game. Rather than worrying you with complex issues like real character development, a realistic plot, or thinking, Rogue Galaxy has you swing your sword and shoot your gun a lot. That about sums it up, and initially it is a refreshing game. After FFXII, which I found overly dramatic, Rogue Galaxy was a breath of fresh air.

Unfortunately, after a while I found I had had enough of the whole “fresh air” business. The weapon-mixing system is neat enough, but gets every bit as repetitive as the combat. The mini-games, hunts, et cetera are fun for a while, but in the end it’s just even more fighting. There’s ultimately no motivation to do much of the “100% completion” for all of the minigames and weapons because there’s just too much of it to deal with. RG is great for the first 30 hours or so, but the fighting doesn’t stay fun forever. Dungeons grow from being sort of interesting to incredibly boring, even with the quick battle loading.

Odin Sphere
Christian
This is a technical wonder. Some say Odin Sphere’s 2D graphics look too good to be true, even though the game was made with little time and money (thus shattering any excuse Konami might make about their laziness to create new Castlevania sprites). Unfortunately, storybook visuals do not instantly make a good game, and Odin Sphere is too confused to know what it wants to be or how to do it properly. For instance, the combat is less action RPG and more straight up action game; it even has rankings for your performance. However the controls aren’t fast or responsive enough to be up to the task. Combat requires more than mashing the attack button, yet that is the one tactic that is most reliable. The nail in the coffin however, is item management, or rather the lack thereof. It is important to constantly plant seeds and mix potions in order to have good stats and powerful items, but the ring style item structure of your inventory is confusing and slow, making it easy to forget what you have and easier to throw away what you might have actually wanted. It adds up to much more downtime and resource management between fights than there should be. It isn’t that the gardening concept is bad, it simply ends up chewing away more time than it needs to.

On a final note, Odin Sphere can have massive slowdown, either due to the PS2 struggling to render the visuals, or because of bad coding. Either way, this only makes it harder to succeed in combat.

Chris
Christian is spot on with Odin Sphere. It looks beautiful, and is fun for a time, but item management and the battle balance really ruined it for me.

My only additional comment is regarding the perspective. The sprites are amazingly well-drawn, but the reason you see so much detail is that your character takes up about 1/5 of the screen. As a result, you can’t see anything but your immediate surroundings. Even with the minimap, I’d find myself under attack by long-range enemies I couldn’t see, or have closer-range enemies charge in from offscreen unpredictably.

This one is cheating, I know, but I finally got around to the latest Final Fantasy this Christmas, and I am sad I waited so long. This is the most wonderful, honest script the series has ever seen, delivered by quality voice actors that minimize bad deliveries and awkward pausing. The story dismisses many of the epic, schlocky tropes of the genre in favor of a more straightforward tale of politics and war. The combat is different and yet effective, awarding strategy but also allowing for a brute force approach. In short, we may never see a FF game like this ever again. For one, Matsuno went crazy and left the project (and Square in general). Two, fans seemed to hate it. So many years of bad design choices by Square have made the kids believe that unless you are killing God with a team of anorexics with zipper and hair gel fetishes, then you simply aren’t doing it right.

Final Fantasy XII
Christian
I can accept that perhaps XII, which I have yet to finish, may fall apart in the end. But who cares about how much it rips off Star Wars? FF has been doing that for years, only this time it borrows some themes and plot elements, rather than just meaningless name drops. And the story? Complaining about how the story uses classic storytelling methods instead of relying on cheap “character development” and anime stereotypes seems childish. Which, I suppose, it is; it was teenagers who fell in love with the genre back in 1997, and it is new teenagers who keep it going a decade later. The same people that download Naruto fansubs and worship Evangelion are the same ones who allow something like Xenosaga and Kingdom Hearts 2 to be considered good examples of storytelling in the genre.

All I am trying to say is that the problem is not with Final Fantasy XII. It is an outlier in the series no doubt, but it is a good game, and I hope someone learns some lessons from it.

Chris
Of all the games of the past year, my opinions on Final Fantasy XII have changed the most. Though I still agree with most of my review just after playing it, I don’t find myself wanting to play through it again at all. Part of this is because the game doesn’t really lend itself to replayability. In most cases, there’s only one “best” way to do things. You’ll always want to use Haste, Protect, etc in the same situations, you’ll always want mostly the same Gambits, and since the characters you choose don’t make a real difference, there’s no variation.

By the halfway point, battles are so hands-off that they’re not terribly interesting, and customization dies off as you fill in the last parts of your License Grid. The plot moves in spurts separated by rather long dungeons and (if you’re a completionist) dozens of hunts or side-quests. I usually like to give the completion thing a try, but FFXII made some of the hunts so difficult or random that I gave up.

Overall, FFXII feels very mechanical to me. Characters are all the same in battle, battles are set-and-forget, and by the time the better characters got any backstory, I wanted Vaan to die violently. The intrigue is all well and good, but not a whole lot is particularly deep - you can see most characters’ motivations simply by looking at them. That said, though, a couple of the story elements were refreshing. There are shades of gray everywhere in the plot, and very few people end up looking entirely good, and there are amazingly no evil religions. There are a couple of nods to the series stereotypes (such as Vaan’s lack of masculinity) but all in all it does feel different plot-wise. Hopefully the next entry does as much and brings control back into the battles.

Wild Arms 5 (bonus)
Chris
Ahh, the power of cheese. It might not be the absolute worst plot I’ve seen, but Wild Arms 5 is the only recent game I know of with enough cliches to rival Rogue Galaxy. If you are looking for a feel-good plot with maybe a few bits of darkness for contrast, an entertaining world to explore, and well-done if recycled characters, you should play… Skies of Arcadia, which WA5 seems to have pilfered from considerably. The world in WA5 is actually pretty decent, all told, but there is very little that can save the game from the mindless repetition of “Never give up!” from the main characters.

That said, the battles are strategic and, once you get going, the extras are pretty satisfying. Even the early extra dungeons were fun to go through, and any game that’s able to get me to play extra after 40 hours nowadays deserves a pretty hefty bit of praise. If anything, over time, I’ve come to like WA5 a bit more; I can ignore the plot to some extent because battles are fairly well balanced and it has really good music. I am willing to forgive a game almost anything if it has good music.

Wild Arms 5 feels a bit like a slow-running roller coaster. The early game is boring and the finale stretches itself a bit too thin, but right in the middle it has more than a few moments of exhilaration and has great pacing. If it didn’t start so gradually, end so poorly, or have horrible dialogue, it would be a really great game.

Age of Conan Links & Resources

wowgoldeu — Tue, 01 Jul 2008 18:02:57 +0000

For those of you flailing around for the latest information about Age of Conan, fear not. There’s plenty of resources out there in the Internets to keep you from drowning. Here are a few resources I’ve managed to scrounge up:

Name Generator – If you’d like to name your character something lore-appropriate, this name generator will help you on your way. You can select female/male, Stygian/Cimmerian/Aquilonian, and click to see what happens.
Conan Kave Feat Calculator – Conan Kave has an excellent feat generator for those of you who love to play with builds. The calculator has now been updated to include all classes.
Emote videos – If you’re dying to see what the emotes in Age of Conan look like, check them out at Ten Ton Hammer.
Ten Ton Hammer – Speaking of TTH, they are one of the leading sources of AoC news and information. Be sure to drop them into your bookmarks if you haven’t already.
Massively/AoC – Massively has an Age of Conan section that’s worth checking out
AoC at Curse – Curse, infamous home of WoW addons, now houses their very own Age of Conan section. This is a site to check daily!

I’m sure a lot more sites will be popping up in the near future (and be sure to link me if I’ve missed any!) Hopefully these will provide some insight and assistance should you find yourself lost in Hyboria.

Image courtesy of Eidos/Funcom.

Share This

It’s Never Too Early for Halloween

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 23:34:08 +0000

My favorite season of the entire year is Halloween and you can be sure that there will be TONS of Halloween related posts to come as that time draws near.

In the interest of not burning you out on all of the Halloween goodness, I’m starting things off now.

This is a set of seven Halloween decorations and you can download each of the seven separately if you so desire. Get to downloading and creating the perfect Halloween lot because I can assure you there will be a contest in the coming months.

Tags: Free Sims 2 Download, Ghost Window Light, Halloween, halloween decorations, halloween lights, Jack-O-Lights, Spider Web Candle Holder, Witch Window Light

Share This

RGCD Issue Four

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:52:37 +0000

RGCD is a downloadable CD-ROM based magazine containing retro reviews, features and developer interviews. Each issue of RGCD contains direct links (to files on disc) of each game, emulator or tool reviewed irrespective of platform.

Previews of each issue are available at www.rgcd.co.uk, but in order to actually read the rest of the articles and reviews you’ll need to download the .ISO image and either burn it to disc or mount it on a virtual drive. There is also a cut-down ‘lite’ version (excluding all games and emulators) provided as a downloadable .ZIP archive.

RGCD is 100% spyware free and all files are virus checked before uploading. Magazine contents are posted in the comments section.

Larva Mortus

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:28:07 +0000

Larva Mortus is a new top-down action game from Rake in Grass, the creators of the well-loved indie shmup Jets n’ Guns. In the game you play an agent in an occult crime-fighting organization of sorts… in other words, you’re going to be slicing, shooting, and blowing up every manner of foul Goosebumps reject in your efforts to protect humanity from the supernatural.

The fighting takes place across various missions that you select from a map. Some are “key” to the storyline and and some aren’t. The structure of each type is the same, however – make your way through a series of randomly generated rooms until you achieve your goal, whether its clearing the area of monsters, destroying profane altars, rescuing civilians, or what have you.

Larva Mortus is fun, and it looks good, but it doesn’t quite live up to Crimsonland or Smash TV, which are the two games it most reminded me of (and both classics of the genre). The action isn’t quite frantic enough, the RPG elements are a bit too diluted, the maps are too simple… and the game’s never quite sure whether it’s supposed to be scary or campy. Or maybe it’s the simple fact that it’s not as fun as it should be to blow a zombie’s head off with a shotgun!

But try it for yourself if it sounds interesting. The demo caps the amount of experience you can get, which bars you from attempting the later story missions. The full game is $19.95.

(Source: John Walker, via Rock, Paper, Shotgun)

Joystiq interview: BioWare’s Ray Muzyka talks Mass Effect 2, DLC and his favorite interface

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:06:00 +0000

Filed under: Features, Interviews

Normally, when we want to talk to Ray Muzyka, General Manger of BioWare, we have to camp outside his palatial mansion and wait for him to get his morning paper. He’s pretty spry though, so we can usually get out “When is Mass Effect 2 go–” before he slams the door in our face. But this time, EA actually asked us to pick the good doctor’s brain. Here are the results:

BioWare has worked in several fantastical settings. How did working in a sci-fi world like Mass Effect differ from some of your earlier titles?

That’s a great question. The creative inspiration for both fantasy and sci-fi, and contemporary settings for that matter, certainly come from very different sources on different projects - for example, we’re inspired by the classic fantasy novels for our fantasy games like Baldur’s Gate or Dragon Age, and by classic science fiction films for science fiction IPs like Mass Effect, and by contemporary setting movies and novels for other titles. We’re always striving to deliver powerful emotional experiences to our audience.

Continue reading Joystiq interview: BioWare’s Ray Muzyka talks Mass Effect 2, DLC and his favorite interface

Permalink | Email this | Comments

Last Attempt!

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:39:29 +0000

I’m just a few hours fresh from a really looong Karazhan run my guild did and still a bit tired. You see we went all the way to Prince Malchezaar in one night, leaving just Illhoof, Netherspite and Nightbane standing. Everything was pretty smooth sailing until we got to Prince where we wiped about 4 or 5 times before finally killing him. We also had similar problems last week when we also wiped several times on him and it came to the point where I had to leave the raid. They found a replacement for me and killed him in two more attempts. But today I was there and I really was thinking that we weren’t going to get him since we were all tired. We thought that maybe it would have been best to go back the next day and try again when we’re all alert and at 100%. But we decided to give it one last go and say “what the heck”.

Back in my old guild the Thundercats where a lot of my current guild mates actually came from, we had some kind strange stroke of luck wherein we’d wipe several times on bosses and then just when we say it’s the last attempt for the night we down the boss. Call it culmination of a learning curve (for new bosses) or just plain luck wherein everything went our way but we’d get the job done somehow and many times it was by saying it was the last attempt.

So when I realized on our last attempt that we were getting Prince down to the last few percentages with just one person down, I knew we had the fight in the bag. When I saw Prince fall, I remembered the “last attempt” scenarios that the Thundercats used to have. I immediately gave a whisper to one of my closest guild mates who was a Thundercat himself, telling him that it was like the old days. All he said was “LOL” in agreement!

I know it’s crazy but if you’re guild is having a hard time downing a boss, maybe saying it’s the last attempt for the night would turn the tides just like for us.

Share This

MLG PC Circuit 3v3 Arena Competition

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 21:14:02 +0000

In the Major League Gaming (MLG) 2008 PC Circuit, 32 teams will compete in World of Warcraft Arena battles for over $20,000 in prizes at each event. The first event will be in San Diego during the weekend of June 13-15, 2008 and will be streamed live on GotFrag TV. Registration for the San Diego stop opens May 15 at 7 p.m. EST and is on a first-come, first-served basis. To learn more about the PC Circuit, please visit its
information page.

Tekkyuuman

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 20:26:57 +0000

Tekkyuuman is a new release by prolific Japanese developer Ikiki, famous for a number of controversial games featuring ninjas, bloodbath and outrageous violence. Usually with all three elements at the same time.

In this game, you must make your way towards the green spiky object and smash it with the flail. Use the control key to swing your weapon and tap the left shift key to jump. A wall jump can also be executed by pressing the same shift key when scaling up walls.

Red switches can be activated either by touch or hitting them with your flail. An extra life is awarded after every boss fight. [zip file of Ikiki's games]

Web site address belongs to the musician.

Name: Tekkyuuman
Developer: Ikiki
Category: Action
Type: Freeware
Size: 1MB
Direct download link: Click here [zip format]
Video walkthrough: Available (major spoilers!)

The9: Confident to get WoW license again

wowgoldeu — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 19:02:15 +0000

I know, World of Warcraft isn’t exactly an Asian-made MMORPG, but the fact that China-based online games publisher The9 is operating the massive franchise is enough for MMOtaku to include it in any story lineup.

In 17173.com article entitled “The9 in Negotiation with Blizzard on Renewing WoW License,” the new president of The9, the beautiful Chen Xiaowei, said they were confident to get the deal.

Here’s an excerpt of the story:

As confirmed by The9, the company is now conducting a negotiation with Blizzard Entertainment to renew the license of World of Warcraft … The result of the negotiation is critical to The9, since WoW earnings ~~took~~ comprise 90 percent of the company’s total revenues … Chen Xiaowei, new president of The9, told the press that they were now discussing with Blizzard on continuing the licensing of WoW. With the latest announcement of Wrath of The Lich King and the long-term cooperation of Blizzard, The9 will try its best to speed up the negotiation.

Share This