Classic PC Games

Yeah, E3 is going on right now, but I'll wait for it to finish before talking about it so I don't miss anything. For the record, Nintendo's press conference was seriously depressing. Nothing was announced that appeals to hardcore gamers or hardcore Nintendo fans. Hopefully they have something hidden for later this week.

Anyway, PC gaming. Pretty awesome? I would assert that it is pretty awesome!

Recently I've been going through some real classics for the first time in many years (or, in some cases, ever).

Descent Ultimate

Ultimate is essentially the "essential collection" of Descent I and II. It includes both games, in an updates engine. It's also based on the open source community upgrades of each game. Look around for it, it's a spectacular package. And as much as I love Descent III (which is now available on GameTap), the original two are better gameplay-wise. Much more corridor-crawling and key-card-fetching than the plot-oriented mission objectives of D3, and while that might make D3 sound more appealing, it just doesn't seem to flow as well. Maybe it's just me.

So who enjoys getting motion-sickness? Play Descent for a few hours. It's an FPS, in zero gravity, with full 360 degree movement in any direction and rotation on any axis. You go around exploring and finding key cards to open new doors and eventually unlock the door to the boss, all the while fighting enemy bots. Basically the same structure as Doom, but a lot cooler and more vomit-inducing. Seriously, at least go "find" the first Descent, somehow. It's probably not that hard to find and it's really awesome.

Deus Ex

I know I've written about this before, but I never got around to beating it last time and I'm just now getting back to it, starting over from the beginning. I have to say it's definitely growing on me. The aiming and control is still an issue, but it's mitigated if I just use stealth more, take about 20 seconds to wait for my crosshair to shrink enough that I won't miss my headshot on the guard walking slowly like a zombie on his 10 ft patrol route, and make sure to pick up every item I can lay my mechanical hands on, I'm having more fun with it. Exploration is actually rewarded with awesome new weapons, too! I went into a (completely optional) Hotel area to rescue some hostages from terrorists, and happened to find a bad-ass Flamethrower in there. I had to dump half my inventory to make room for it (RE4, anyone?) and I haven't actually needed to use it yet (I haven't been close enough to an enemy who wasn't already a corpse to hit them with the jet of searing hot flame), but anyway it's a Flamethrower, so that's cool. I also entered this terrorist warehouse a different route this time through that level, and managed to find a sweet assault rifle on one of the guards that made that level about fourteen times easier.

Also the AI is pretty friggin' dumb in Deus Ex, I'm sorry, but it's true. If you shoot them and fail to kill them, they just start flailing their arms like kermit the frog and running in circles or bumping into walls.


Alright, maybe it's more like this:

You know, same thing.

Diablo 2

ATTACK OF THE COWS

In anticipation of Diablo 3, I'm playing Diablo 2 for the first time ever. It's pretty good, I guess. From what I've seen, all the issues I have with the game will be fixed in D3, so that's good news.

Basically, this is a game where you click on things and your character attacks them. Or you click on loot to pick it up. Or you click on NPCs to talk to them. Or you click to move around. Basically what I'm saying is I have carpal tunnel?

Descent: Freespace

Despite the name, the only thing Freespace has in common with Descent is the developer and the fact that it features spaceships. Not the same spaceships, though. Also it has some kick-ass box art, even if it's unreleated to Descent's kick-ass box art.

Freespace takes place in . . . wait for it . . . space. "Free" space, actually. You fly around in space inhabited by deadly alien spaceships and questionable physics (but really, what space game has realistic physics outside of Space Shuttle sims?). You shoot lasers and missiles at enemies and try to kill them. It's really fun, but still not as good as Freespace 2. Freespace 2 hits GameTap this thursday, and I will be promptly replacing Freespace on my hard drive with #2 because it is superior in every way.

Although I should really just download the upgraded, open source version of FS2 which looks twenty-seven times better:

Seriously, if you like space combat, download FS2: Open. It's free and legal and looks amazing. It's also the greatest space combat game ever created, unless you count Dodonpachi which I don't because that's a totally different genre. If I did count it, though, it would totally win.

Day of Defeat: Source

Last weekend, Valve hosted a free trial weekend for Day of Defeat: Source. It was free to download and play all weekend, and the normal price of $9.99 was cut to $4.99. I've been meaning to try the game out, but never got around to it, and I can say that I'm sorry I've been missing out for so long. I might just like this one better than Counterstrike: Source! I bought it after a very enjoyable weekend.

Ok, so if you're not familiar with the game, I'll explain a little. It's an online-only multiplayer team-based FPS set in World War II. The original Day of Defeat was a Half-Life mod, just like Team Fortress and Counterstrike, and Valve decided to buy out the mod developer and create an official version for the Source engine. Although many players of the original games continue to decry the Source-based updates of the classic mods, often for "simpler" or "dumbed-down" gameplay, I happen to think Valve has done an amazing job with these games. But then, Valve hasn't made anything I don't like yet. I digress. The gameplay of Day of Defeat: Source is, at first glance, not very unique. It has class-based team gameplay similar to Team Fortress 2, you have to capture flag points or plant explosives just as in Counterstrike: Source or TF2, and the weapons kill quickly with no health or ammo pickups, just as in Counterstrike. These similarities are really superficial, though, when you look at the actual flow of the gameplay and the key differences that set DoD:S apart.

Firstly, DoD:S features two important gameplay additions. Up first is sprinting.

This seems similar to the sprinting found in the Call of Duty series, and I don't know which came first. Regardless, it lets you run much faster than normal, with the downside that you can't shoot while sprinting. Sprinting also quickly decreases your stamina meter, so you can only sprint for a few seconds before you become tired, and need to walk normally, or stay still, for a few additional seconds to bring your meter back up. This definitely helps balance the game, because the sprinting really makes you move fast and helps a lot dodging enemy fire or escaping from grenades. If you know that a sniper is waiting for you or a machine-gunner could open up on your position as soon as you leave cover, sprinting erratically might be the only way to progress. This greatly speeds up gameplay that might otherwise be the same slow, methodical pace as Counterstrike.

The second gameplay difference is the prone position. Again, I think this is in Call of Duty, but that's not important. When standing normally, your gun has a lot of recoil. I mean, if you think the AK in CS has recoil, just try out the support rifle in DoD and you'll know what I mean. It's possible to counter the recoil when spraying, but it's difficult. This only really works well with the assault rifle because of its fast rate of fire and decreased recoil. Anyway, laying prone will greatly reduce this recoil, which can be crucial to scoring more kills. It also greatly lowers your profile, and in dark areas of the map or around corners it can help you stay a little more hidden from a distance while you pick off noobs. Lying prone also allows machine-gunners to mount their weapon when there's nothing else (like a sandbag pile or windowsill) to mount it on. Of course, the downsides of lying Prone are that you don't move very fast at all; the transition from standing to prone takes some time during which you are totally vulnerable and cannot fire; you can only fire while not moving while prone, so that if you try to move around a corner you need to stop moving to actually fire, and at close range you'll have a much harder time killing someone because you have to look all the way up to their upper body for the killing shot while they have your entire upper body lying right in front of their sights, not to mention the decreased mobility. All in all, a balanced proposition.


So what about the classes? They're actually pretty unique to this game as well.

First up is the Rifleman class. The rifle is a slow rate of fire, high damage weapon. Think of a sniper rifle without the scope. It's deadly at medium to long ranges, and includes an iron sight, although aiming is sometimes more effective without it. These guns also have high recoil, making them hard to use at close range firefights. Definitely a strong support and defensive weapon, but you won't be mowing down dozens of enemies with one of these guys. It's a pretty cool and unique weapon for an online FPS, and works well to bridge the gap between the other classes.

Next is the assault class. After playing last weekend, I checked the Steam forums, and it seems this class has gotten a big buff in the latest update, which some claim to make it unbalanced. I can see their point but I think the balance is fine. Basically, this class sports two types of grenades (smoke and frag) as well as an automatic gun for short to mid-ranged use. It has high rate of fire and moderate recoil, but weak damage per shot. Secondary fire is a strong punch for really close-quarters combat. I love playing this class, and it's true that this class is versatile and lets you rack up the kills, much like the soldier in TF2. Mainly, the assault class is used for breaking through defensive lines and capturing flag points. As an offensive class, though, it falls short at defending, and is weak to long range support classes like the sniper, rifle, or machine-gunner. Because the recoil is weaker, I've found it easy to spray at an enemy while controlling the recoil for more effectiveness. The smoke grenades are great for busting machine-gunner and sniper nests too, and play a crucial role in winning a lot of games.

The support class sports an automatic rifle similar to the assault class. It has better power per shot but a lot more recoil, though. With secondary fire, it can double as a weak rifle by switching to a more accurate semi-automatic mode with a much lower rate of fire. I'm not a big fan of this class, because it just seems like a cross between the rifle and assault classes but with the worst of both worlds. Weaker than the rifle, and less accurate than the assault. This is used for medium-range firefights and covering the assault players as they rush forward. This is the one class that is seems redundant.

Next is the Sniper. Every FPS needs a sniper, right? Well, this is the same old story. You have a sniper rifle. Most of the time it seems like a 1-hit kill to me. The sniper also has a pistol for close range encounters, and it's not a bad gun. Not much else to say; the sniper is clearly a useful part of any defending force.

The machine-gunner. I'll admit I haven't gotten a chance to play this class yet. This is because there are only 2 machine-gunners allowed on a team at any one time, which is the main balance to this class. This class comes with a heavy machine-gun turret that you can set up on the ground or on a piece of scenery like a window-sill or pile of sandbags. It has great rate of fire and big clips, and will tear apart anyone unlucky enough to enter the field of vision of the gunner. Since it can only be fired accurately when mounted, though, machine-gunners are immobile and only face one general direction, making them very vulnerable to flanking maneuvers. A lot of people in-game (noobies like myself) were crying that this class was unfair "like the heavy in TF2" because it can sit there and rack up kills, but that seems ridiculous to me. Classes serve particular roles. It's a defensive class. It has weaknesses just like the heavy. Learn to deal with it. If I get killed by a machine-gunner, I don't think "crap that was cheap", I think "crap, I need to find a way past that machine-gunner position" and then I might switch to assault and toss down a smoke grenade, or switch to sniper and take him out from long range. Or find an alternate rout and come at him from behind. All in all, a very useful and balanced class for those who like to sit in one place and rack up kills.

Finally, we have the rocket trooper. He's equipped with a rocket launcher, but plays very differently from the soldier in TF2. For one, he has to shoulder the launcher before firing, which takes a moment and makes his movement very slow. This means no rocket jumps, no spamming loads of rockets, and also means lots of vulnerability. This class is mainly used for cracking defensive positions or getting people behind cover. I don't play it that much because it's just not as hectic and fun as assault, but it has a purpose and it's very balanced.


This is getting a little long-winded, so I'll make the next part brief. The flow of gameplay and map design. This is what makes DoD:S really stand out. On a 32-player server, this can be an amazingly fun game. Each map has several flag points you need to capture, and holding each one simultaneously results in a win. Capturing most points only requires one guy to stand near it for a second or two. It's very fast. Only one or two points on each map usually require two members of a team to be near it for several seconds before a capture takes place, and these are strategically located in heavily contested center areas. Each map contains many different routes to each flag point. If the enemy has set up a strong defense in the central area, you can bet there's some sort of back path that will let you flank them. This is what makes the game so darn fun. It feels like each individual player has the capacity to alter the entire game by a clever strategic flank, or through superior positioning. With good teamwork, a superior team could completely dominate any random group of players because of how important class counters and map positioning is in this game. This is one game where tactics and strategy can clearly trump superior accuracy and reflexes, much like TF2, but with the difference that accuracy and reflexes do help a lot more in DoD:S than TF2.

Alright, I'm done. Go give the game a try, it's super-cheap and really awesome!

Apparently Shmups Suck! Who Knew?

Let's take a quick look at Metacritic scores here, shall we? What follows is just about every american-released shmup that has an average score listed on Metacritic. I've selected review excerpts from most of them that pissed me off, not because they just criticized the game, but because they displayed horrible ignorance of Shmups as a genre. I in fact left out any negative review excerpts that criticized the game and made a fair point about it. I also obviously left out positive review excerpts, of which there were several for each game. Keep that in mind as you read on.



Raiden III: 61
-Review excerpts that piss me off:

"A purebred '80s throwback, Raiden III hasn't a chance of competing with exciting modern shooters - or even the classics of yesteryear."

"The game is too short, and doesn’t sport enough play options to keep it fresh past a few hours of play. "

"The game doesn't take long enough to beat, there's no real reason to play it again, and there isn't anything even remotely special about the experience."

Gradius III and IV: 64
-Review excerpts that piss me off:

"Only enjoyable if you equate fun with frustration, but most gamers have long since outgrown that philosophy, as have most games. Yet Gradius III and IV clings to its roots like a long rotting tooth."

"Two arcade perfect ports of games that will get stale within a short few minutes. Back then, way back then, this may have been revolutionary but on the PS2 it's almost like an insult to the grown intelligence of gamers."

"Meritless in terms of taking their genre forward or, worse even, invoking the warm glow of nostalgia. Spend £15 on a NES and the original games instead." (I'd like to point out that neither of these two games were on the NES. Or on any home console until this collection on the PS2, in fact. And Gradius on the NES was a joke compared to the two masterpieces of Gradius III and IV)

"Old-school graphics and unprecedented difficulty level make this one a loser for all but the most dedicated retro-game freaks. "

Chaos Field: 61, 63 (DC, GC respectively)
-Review excerpts that piss me off:

"It's like fighting a fireworks display. Sometimes the enemy blows up. Sometimes you do. There's no strategy; no hook that makes you think about how you'll do better next time."

Triggerheart Exelica: 63
-Review excerpts that pissed me off:

"Despite the enjoyment of slinging bad guys around like giant wrecking balls, Triggerheart's indecisive difficulty, average looks and short length render it a bad choice for any but the most devoted shooter fans."

"Like most arcade shooters, the experience is brief. The challenge is there for those who would like to memorize attack patterns and master the five levels, but there isn't anything that feels exciting."

"I enjoyed Triggerheart, but the game's length is both a good and bad thing -- it has only five levels, and most players will be able to beat them all in about 30 minutes."

Castle Shikigami 2: 67

Castle Shikigami 3: 67
-Review excerpts that pissed me off:

"If this were a downloadable title on WiiWare, Xbox Live Arcade, or PlayStation Network, it's a safe bet that we'd be telling you to go fire up your console and start it downloading right now."

"Castle of Shikigami III is a great title for people who enjoy the occasional classic, arcade-style game. However, it has a decided lack of content and doesn't offer much beyond the initial experience."

"The mere fact that it fills a niche on the Wii doesn't excuse this disappointing lack of substance. "

Under Defeat: 67
-Review excerpts that pissed me off:

"Inarguably, what Under Defeat does, it does very well. The execution is perfectly pitched and it clearly ticks each and every box the developers drew up on the ideas table. But it's hard to shake the feeling that this is '80s gaming dressed in '00s visuals running on '90s hardware. The gameplay is sweet and eloquent but, underneath it also tired and relentlessly derivative."

Thunder Force V: 70

Gradius Collection: 76
-Review excerpts that pissed me off:

"Twenty years ago, it would have been worth forty bucks. But today, it’s just another obsolete space ship, grounded in favor of better, faster rockets."

"If you love slow, old-fashioned gameplay, you'll be in heaven here. "

"The Gradius Collection will mainly appeal to fans who want to relive those old school memories; I can't see many new gamers being hooked on Gradius, even though it's a fun experience."

R-Type Final: 79

Gradius V: 82
-Review excerpts that pissed me off:

"Even though its more visually polished than some of the other shooters out there, the lack of innovation and the small number of seven stages makes Gradius V a must for fans of the series only."

"It's just too bad that there isn't much to it beyond the standard gameplay. "

"About the only things that keep the game from scoring higher is the lack of any meaningful innovation in the gameplay and the fact that the game only has seven stages to play."

Ikaruga: 81, 85, 88 (DC, GC, 360 respectively)
-Review excerpts that pissed me off:

"As fun as it starts out to be, it gets old rather quickly. Fortunately or unfortunately, the game is extremely short, and on its easiest mode can be completed in about an hour."

"A perfect example of why shooters have become such a niche genre. It's a good game that's well made. It's even got an interesting hook to keep the hard core happy. But the insane difficulty will keep most players from getting past the first level before giving up. And with the ultra-short playing time, even shooter fans might not find enough to like here."


Summary of Criticisms


Shmups are "retro" or "old school"; "not modern"
Shmups were once one of the top genres of games on consoles and in arcades all over the world. To this day, companies such as Cave, Seibu Kaihatsu and Alfa System continue to develop and release shmups in Japanese arcades, but in America and Europe they have become much rarer. The reason this criticism pisses me off is because new shmups are being released all the time! If you say Gradius V is a "retro throwback" and that it "isn't modern" is ridiculous because the game was released in 2004! If an average reviewer decided to play Cave's newest shmup, Dodonpachi Daifukkatsu, I can guarantee he or she would mention how it's such a "retro" game even though it came out about a month ago as of this writing! It includes new features compared to other shmups and Cave has always pushed the genre forward, albeit slowly. A game released this year cannot be "not modern."

Saying a shmup released this year is retro is like saying that one of the dozens of FPSes released last year (like Bioshock, or Half-Life 2: Episode 2, or Crysis, or CoD 4) is retro because FPSes have been around since Doom in 1993. "Hey, you walk around with a gun in a first-person perspective and shoot things," on the most basic level the most modern FPSes haven't really changed that formula. So it is with shmups. "Hey, you just fly around in a 2D plane and shoot enemies and dodge bullets," and on the most basic level modern shmups are the same. That's what a genre is!

Shmups are too short
Ugh, I hate this one. So, most shmups are between 5 and 7 stages in length (not counting loops) which usually equates to about 30-45 minutes of gameplay time to beat it in a single run. Criticizing shmups for this trait, however, shows a real ignorance about the genre and about arcade games in general. Sure, if you get a shmup and just play through it, continuing every time you get a game over, until you hit the end, you might think "wow, that was fast." But that's not how they are meant to be played. For arcade games, and shmups specifically, the aim is for high scores. To achieve the highest theoretical score, you will need to beat the entire game without using any continues because continuing resets your score each time. To truly "beat" a shmup, you need to beat it without continuing. This is called a 1CC, or "1-credit-completion." To accomplish this requires considerable skill and often memorization, but above all PRACTICE. While it's true that you can continue through a shmup in 30 minutes, to actually beat it properly by 1CCing it, will take you considerable more time. Often 20-30 hours of total play time, depending on your skill level. To put it into perspective, I played Ikaruga on the easiest possible settings for over 25 hours before 1CCing it. I don't even consider that 1CC to be legitimate because it was not done at default settings. Under default settings and in easy mode I'm lucky to even make it to level 4. I played those 5 levels over and over and over until I could survive for longer and longer, and rack up chains to get a decent score as well. I think my 1CC score was around 13 million, which is still horrible considering the world high score is around 40 million.

Anyway, my point is, properly beating a shmup takes just as much time as beating an average FPS or even some shorter RPGs. It is just ignorant to complain about how short shmups are. Playing the game right means replaying each level over and over, trying to improve your run each time and get just a little further. In fact I advise not continuing, ever. That way each time you get a little further in the game you will see new levels and areas and enemies and bullet patterns. In my experience this helps you improve faster, too.

Shmups are too hard to be enjoyable
If you're too much of a wuss to play a shmup, don't cry that the game is too frustrating. Maybe the problem is you. Seriously, keep practicing, get better, and you'll enjoy making progress. Of course shmups are hard games. That's a part of their inherent awesomeness. The entire fun comes from bettering yourself. The only time this criticism is valid is when a game is unfairly difficult and where there was nothing you could do to prevent death. A small number of shmups do fall into this catagory; namely, most things made by Psikyo and Raizing. But even those games aren't really that bad.

Shmups don't have enough content outside the main game
When was it that gamers started caring more about the extra content that come with games than they do about the games themselves? I remember when you got a game, and that was all you got. Does Contra III have online multiplayer and bonus movies and storyboards and making-of documentaries and a thousand extra levels? No, it has 6 stages and a couple difficulty levels. And it's still a FINE game. What about one of my favorites, Star Wars: Jedi Knight 2? It's a 3D PC game that came out in 2002. It featured a single player campaign, and a (amazing) multiplayer component. That's it. So why is it that shmup reviews can honestly say "The gameplay is great! It's really fun! It has a deep scoring system! But wait, the game only comes with 5 levels. It has no extra content! Waaaa! 60/100!' If the game is FUN, then that makes it a GOOD GAME.

This is like when reviewers take away points on games lacking online multiplayer. Why don't you judge the game based on what's there, not what isn't? Now, I won't complain about extra content if it's included. The recent Blast Works on the Wii features an extensive level editor and 4 other shmups that were ported from the PC, besides the main game. Hey, that's great. But I wouldn't have cried if they had only released the main game with no other extras. I've heard it's a solid shmup with improvements over its predecessor Tumiki Fighters.

My point is, extra content is a nice bonus, but really not that important.

Shmups have no storyline
So what? If I want a storyline I'll play an RPG. Or better yet, read a book. I play shmups to dodge friggin' bullets!



Time to end this rant in the way any shmup-related article should end: with this immortal quote from Winston Churchill:

"There is nothing more exhilarating than to be shot at without result."

What am I playing right now?

Over the past couple weeks I've been in an RTS mood so I've been playing Supreme Commander, Starcraft, and Dawn of War a lot. Check out some of these Korean pro Starcraft matches, they're really exciting to watch, complete with hilarious English commentary by Tasteless! Also who else is excited for Starcraft II?



I've also been playing lots of MechWarrior 3, the best mech game in existence. Also if anyone wants to challenge me to some megamek let me know.

I've been working my way through Metal Gear Solid 3 on the PS2. In terms of gameplay it's probably the best one yet, although the story seems a little lacking compared to the other two. I'm not at the end yet, though, so I'm sure there will be lots of plot twists to change my mind in the near future.

I'm also still plodding through Mass Effect but the only motivation I have to play it lately is that I payed $50 for the thing.

Finally, I'm stuck on the final boss in Metroid Prime, called... uh, Metroid Prime.

Thar she blows


This boss is a tough one. I can get through most of its attack patterns without taking much damage, but when I get to Prime's final form, it becomes exceedingly difficult to hit it without taking damage.

Today marks the release of the Spore Creature Creator. It runs on crappy integrated graphics cards as well as intel macs (and thus probably linux very soon), so there's absolutely no reason not to try out the free trial. Download it and have fun creating horrible affronts to nature and watching them struggle with their miserable existence!

More Mass Effect Impressions

Well, after a lot more time with the game, here's some updated impressions:

combat is getting really boring. It basically amounts to sitting behind cover and clicking on enemies until they are dead. If they get too close I might have to back up, smack them with my gun to knock them down, or use a tech/biotic power to destroy them before getting back to clicking on enemies from cover. There is absolutely no more depth than this.

the story missions kind of suck. I'm intentionally doing every side quest because I don't want to do the story missions. The story missions are consistently about excessive and long combat sequences and driving sequences. Over and over. For a long time. And occasionally there's NPCs to talk to and do a few small side quests in the middle of it. It's basically the same structure of KOTOR (which wasn't bad in that game) but because of the boring combat and driving, it just falls apart.

In fact, everything besides the conversation (which isn't much more advanced than KOTOR) is pretty dull. The inventory sucks too, I'm constantly reaching the 150-item maximum limit, which forces you to convert any NEW items you pick up into omni-gel. You get no choice in this as far as I can tell. So if you hit the item limit but you pick up some sweet items at the same time, and you want to convert some old useless items into omni-gel and save the new ones, you just can't. You can't (as far as I know) just 'not' take stuff from a storage locker; you have to take an item or convert it to omni-gel. The inventory list is awkward too. I hear it's an improvement over the one on the xbox, but if so I'd just hate to see how much worse it could be. There's basic categories by item type, but within those categories can be as many as 20 or 30 items just laying around. This is especially true in the weapon upgrade items, because I rarely go into that item category unless I'm actively upgrading a weapon, so there can be a hundred ammo types just sitting there that you'll rarely even see until you need to lighten your inventory.

Also, unlike KOTOR's vast assortment of weaponry, from vibroblades to lightsabers to stun batons to blaster pistols to disruptors to sonic blasters to bare hands, in Mass Effect there are literally just 4 weapons: pistol, rifle, shotgun, sniper. I don't know how Bioware could have taken such a large step backward in its game design compared to KOTOR, but Mass Effect feels like such an unpolished game it's sad. I really think the entire reason this game was praised so highly by major gaming press was that it plays like a slightly more complicated version of Gears of War, but with a storyline that copies KOTOR. Hence, the phrase that I like to use to describe Mass Effect:

GEARS OF KOTOR

Mass Effect (PC)

After about 3 hours of Mass Effect on the PC, here's my first impressions:

Pretty good; not as good as KOTOR. I like the dialog choices, although the radial menu system seems much more fitted for consoles. I would have liked the ability to click on my choices with a cursor instead of having to move the mouse in the direction I think it should go. Also, it could just be my framerate, but the aiming feels laggy and inaccurate. I know it's a console port but Bioware is generally good at those, I expected more from them.

The graphics surprised me, and not in a great way. By default, there's this film grain effect that is really annoying. I turned it off after a few minutes. Not sure why they included that but it just makes everything look fuzzy. In addition, it has some really overdone motion blur that gets obscures your vision and doesn't add much to the immersion. I turned that off too. Finally, there's a persistant pixelation effect with shadows and many textures. This effect seems to be much less so on objects directly in front of you, which leads me to believe it might be an intentional "out of focus" effect, but it looks just awful and jaggy compared to the great effect in Assassin's Creed (I'll write about that game later). And this always makes shadows on character faces look glitchy and weird. This could also just be an issue with my own graphics card, since I've heard some cards can make graphics look pixelated, but even so, it's a dumb glitch that Bioware should really have fixed.

The gameplay is pretty good, surprisingly. I was disappointed to hear the game wasn't an RPG like KOTOR, but the third-person-shooter style gameplay actually works pretty well. The cover system is decent, although breaking out of cover feels sluggish, and the squad commands and powers are ok. It feels more gritty and realistic than the KOTOR fights where two guys stand in front of eachother, taking turns firing their blasters.

One bit of the gameplay that I'm not sure on yet is the Mako driving. The Mako is a sort of land buggy used for exploring new planets. You basically drive around alien landscapes, sometimes shooting stuff. The game's tutorial says you can just press E to get out of the Mako and fight on foot, which I would vastly prefer to do, but it's never worked for me so far. And the Mako itself, which uses decent vehicle physics, is also extremely glitchy. In my last game, the Mako got stuck in a platform and I was FORCED to reload my last checkpoint. The "return to ship" button did not work. And I still couldn't actually get out of the Mako for some unknown reason. So now I'm scared to go back to the Mako without saving right before each landing.

The storyline seems to be EXACTLY like KOTOR, just without any licensed Star Wars aspects. There's a renegade "spectre" (they're like Jedi/Sith combined), and he's commanding an army of what are basically borg ripoffs. He's searching for something called a "Conduit" which will bring back the "reapers" which were thought to be extinct for thousands of years. The reapers will help him wipe out the humans and probably take over the universe, or something. Apparently, his only actual motivation is that he hates humans and wants to kill them. Does this ring any bells? Malak, leading an army of Sith, searches after an ancient technology that will allow him to take over the galaxy with a newly mass produced army. Come on, Bioware, come up with something new for once!

Overall, Mass Effect doesn't feel like as polished an experience as KOTOR was. The combat amounts to third-person-shooter combat, which means that your success is less dependent on what items you have equipped or your characters stats, and more to how good you are at cover and aiming. KOTOR had a ton of depth in areas an RPG ought to, namely items and character stats. Mass Effect certainly has fun gameplay, but it feels more shallow in execution. The lack of any Melee combat (besides simple knockdowns when enemies get close) is probably the culprit, but who knows. Anyway, I'll keep playing with some cautious optimism that it will get better. So far, it's a good game, but nowhere near deserving of the high praise I've seen it receive from the mainstream gaming press.

Giant Robots!

This, of course, is based on the popular (and awesome) Dinosaur Comics. Check it out, seriously!

Here's some pictures of some awesome giant robots from Mech Warrior and Supreme Commander:

Mad Cat from the MechWarrior series of games


And here are the ACUs from Supreme Commander

I think I've said all I can here.