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Comments
If I had a capture card, I'd probably make a video about The Lord of the Rings: War in the North. It's a perfect example of how fantasy me-too-isms and questionable design choices can drag down a game that is very obviously made with love of the source material in mind. Is War in the North a bad game? It'd make a bad book, or a bad film, but the gameplay is pretty solid and it has an interesting combat mechanic going on. I'm ready to say that it's actually pretty good on the merits of its "game-only" factors. But it doesn't stack up as a good Lord of the Rings experience, and some of both the narrative and mechanical decisions really don't fit with the source material.
For those that don't know, WITN is an action RPG set in the northern regions of Middle Earth against the backdrop of those conflicts. It runs parallel to the plot of the books and films, in many ways taking an agreeable hybrid approach to the telling; while the game is definitely designed along the aesthetic of the films, some of the events are altered to more closely resemble those of the book, insofar as those events concern you. For the most part, though, the game follows the exploits of an Elf, a Man and a Dwarf working together "against the odds" and the cracks already start appearing.
Elves, Men and Dwarves working together was a big deal in the original story because these races had so powerfully segregated from one-another. It was truly exceptional that individuals like Bilbo and Gandalf could move between the races of the world in comfort. Only the wise and the good-hearted enjoy that sort of privilege in the Third Age of Middle Earth, and I can't even recall if the game explains the circumstances of its three protagonists coming together. This is copying a pattern found in the main story for no other reason than it being there, and this triad-of-characters concept ultimately brings the game down because it prevents the game from taking a wholly superior and probably more creative route.
Since the films have been released, there's been a fair few Lord of the Rings games across a variety of platforms. Notably, the licensed games released concurrently with the films were actually very solid and fun action RPGs in their own right, if exceedingly short. There have also been a few RTS games with a smattering of other action and RPG titles thrown in. Does anyone remember The Third Age, in fact? Not only did that game have no claim to the subtitle of "The Third Age", it also featured a parallel storyline and an Elf, a Man and a Dwarf as its three playable characters. The War of the Ring never changes. Except it could, because there's one idea worthy of exploration that this game came so close to in concept, but ended up being a hybrid of loot-based RPGs and the licensed movie tie-ins.
What we haven't had is a stealth-and-swordplay game from the perspective of a Ranger. In WITN, you can play as a Ranger if you like, and you indeed have both a sword and the capacity to use stealth, but the game is built around providing for three different characters with exceedingly different styles of play, preventing it from deepening any of its individual mechanics. But a fresh game, built from the ground up to support both stealth and a strong close combat system, with no magic use and set against the backdrop of the War of the Ring? That would be unique in and of itself, but also a brilliant use of the source material that would also defy the general expectations of fantasy RPGs. So why didn't they do this?
Well, it could easily be that they didn't stumble upon the idea. But then that begs another question -- if they didn't stumble upon the idea they were so close to having, why not? Why did they gravitate towards the triad of races and deliver something much more generic? I don't think this has much to do with the developers, and more to do with the industry in general. We're in an era of video games where breaking from the norm is often seen as pointless complexity, especially in "hardcore" demographics and fantasy RPGs in particular. If you look at fantasy MMOs, they all adhere to the standards set by World of Warcraft. Even the hybrid games, Borderlands and Dead Island, decided that a loot-heavy system was an appropriate way to handle RPG mechanics in games that more heavily resemble the first-person shooter.
War in the North has an Elf, a Man and a Dwarf because the conventions of the fantasy genre say those have to be in place, and breaking those conventions risks bringing down the ire of consumers and publishers alike. But this means we get strange things in place, such as the Elf character who can use magic. Except Elves in The Lord of the Rings don't consider their arts to be magic at all, and they certainly don't include shooting bolts from staves. In fact, that kind of viscerally impressive magic is generally limited to Maiar and Valar, among which can be counted Gandalf and Sauron, and only Sauron is greedy enough to teach sorcery to his servants.
The overriding issue with this game is how it imposes fantasy video game conventions on The Lord of the Rings rather than using the source material to justify a different (and probably superior) way of doing things. The dialogue in this game isn't good and nor is the plot, despite some enjoyable instances of both, and while the gameplay is good, it's nothing worthy of excessive praise. Perhaps the huge amount of loot in the game appeals to you if you like games like Diablo, but I found it barely tolerable. But all the negative factors of this game can be attributed to the imposition of fantasy standards over the lore of the actual source material.
As amusing as the irony is, we know the industry is in a sad state when the father of the modern fantasy genre is relegated to a position of secondary influence.
Basically, most critics get games/movies/whatever ages before they come out, but have to sign NDAs so they won't review it significantly before it's out.
In this case, a lot of critics have been hinting that the game is a disaster for some time.
I have recently become addicted to Tokimeki Memorial's Girls' Side games, because grinding is fun and I am a lunatic. I wish there were more to do in these bloody games, but at the same time I can't stop playing them. It's insane.
In other news, I am starting to learn how to play fighting games. Tsubaki Yayoi is so fun to sic on people.
> learning fighting games
> not just button-mashing
Whaddya want? I'm dating a challenge gamer. If I don't learn real combos he goes, "Or you could just jab me to death. That's cool, too." *snerk*
The most tragic thing about that statement is that the competitive fighting game scene relies extremely heavily on just that -- using quick, long-ranged attacks to tickle adversaries to death.
/reasons why no-one actually watches competitive gaming
I knew this bit. I was asking specifically about what were they saying about RE6.
I tried to learn her playstyle but to no avail. I'll stick with Ragna and Hakumen.
I was just in a event tha was hosting a small tournament, and most players worth their salt that I saw were pretty much rushdown players.
Oh, okay. Yeah, I haven't heard any of the specific problems with it because all I've heard were the pre-review hints , which were vague by necessity.
So, I started Gothic 4. I would have played the first one first, but I couldn't get it to run.
Anyway, so far...well, I can't call it bad. It looks great, and the combat is passable.
But on the other hand, the plot is really generic and there's nothing in the mechanics I can't get out of dozens of other games. Probably not playing more of this for awhile.
Okay, I watched a review of RE6 and apparently, it boils down to it just being a generic cover-based shooter with nothing interesting to offer.
>In other news, I am starting to learn how to play fighting games. Tsubaki Yayoi is so fun to sic on people.
I never got the hang of Tsubaki. I much prefer playing as Noel and Bang.
Though as far as fighting games go, Persona 4 Arena and Skullgirls has been my activity of choice.
^From what I played of the demo I liked the Leon and Joke missions, though the Chris one could die in a Black Ops-wannabe fire.
Got my hands on Half Minute Hero. Heh, it's pretty fun.
Got around to playing Black Mesa. Decided to leave off before trying to maneuver past the Tentacle in Blast Pit.
Are you supposed to crouch to avoid being detected? Walking clearly doesn't work.
Also Max Payne is a fun game, but the writing really makes it hard for me to give a crap about any of the context.
^^Yeah, and also you have to throw grenades to different levels to distract it.
Do you have a 360 or ps3, Malk?
>Does not have Persona 4 Arena because didn't finish Persona 4 because classes.
:<
360.
Furk. I wanna Skullgirls an IJBMer >
@Clockwork: I know about the grenade thing from watching an HL:S playthrough from several years ago and also from watching Freeman's Mind.
Sorry. I got my ecksubox when it was significantly cheaper than the PS3 and was playing off a cathode ray cancer machine so blue-ray wouldn't have made a difference.
In any case, fuck I'm dilly dallying on RE6, though it'll probably come down to whether Waltzy buys it since I'd mostly want it for co-op shenanigans.
I'm not even a lefty
^^ How appropriate; by all accounts, I hear RE6 is largely defined by its dilly-dallying.
I beat Ys: the Oath in Felghana.
For those who don't know, the Ys series is a series of action RPGs published by Nihon Falcom. This game is a remake of the third entry in the series, Ys III: Wanderers from Ys. Unlike its older entries, which featured a unique "walk into enemies" combat mechanism, this game just uses a very typical 3D top-down view.
This game was made a few years ago and recently localized (based on the fan-translation) and published by XSeed (former Squenix employees, I hear) on Steam and PSP. I played the Steam version.
1. It is challenging. The dungeons, starting with the second, are no cakewalk at all. The bosses...well, there's a reason for the presence of the "Consult a FAQ Already" achievement (for losing to a boss ten times in a row). This was on the normal difficulty setting. That said, I dealt with this just by applying a reasonable degree of caution, prudence, and learning from my mistakes. The game felt difficult...but fair.
2. The game doesn't seem particularly innovative, and cliches and but it is extremely well-polished.
3. The music is awesome.
(cross-posted to TV Tropes forum)
So, started Gothic 1. Um...well, so far, my only impression is that the controls are a disaster, even after remapping them (which was surprisingly difficult).
^^I tried Ys: Oath, it's pretty much exactly up my alley but damn if it's hard. I kept getting stuck on the 2nd boss even when I figured out its pattern.
Assuming by second boss you mean the one you need fire magic to beat, you can get a ruby in that same dungeon, by lighting the torch near the transparent chest. Sadly, I only found that out after I slowly plinked her to death.
You don't need the ruby, but the ruby lets you charge your fire attack, which produces a bigger fireball with splash damage.
Also, if you're stuck, go get level up and get some better equipment (by forging or buying). That worked wonders for me on the second boss--I was having to play a long, long minigame of "dodge the horizontally-incoming obstacle" until I got better stats and suddenly I was taking less damage and dishing out more and the battle was over much faster than I expected.
Yeah, action RPG's have a tendency to be more aggressive with the first couple bosses than most of the rest of the game, probably because you don't have much variety in how to approach things yet. Later in the game you can usually approach things from a "which thing in my vast arsenal do I abuse this time?" approach.
In Ys, that... isn't the case.