I’ve just finished reading about Bethesda’s “Skyrim Game Jam”, where they let the developers create anything they wanted for a week. They came up with some amazing sounding stuff. I already use mods to improve the UI and the look of water, fire, ice, and lighting. I even use the Midas Magic mod which adds spells to the game. But check this out.

• Stealth Enhancements
  From what I gather, there are some fans of the thief series at Bethesda. They’ve modded stuff to allow for the creation of Thief-style water arrows and guards that relight darkened areas. Considering how I play the game, this is my #1 mod. I love it.
• Dark dungeons
  This one has been on my mod wishlist since day one. I’ve tried a number of mods to darken nights and dungeons, but none have done it well. This would fit nicely with the stealth enhancements.
• Goblins
  Another one from my wishlist. Yes, please!
• Seasonal Foliage
  Very nice. This would be subtle, but I think I’d really like it.
• Spears
  The game could use more weapons. All they’ve got are swords, axes, maces, and daggers. Spears are wielded completely differently, and so this requires new character animations as well as new weapon art. It’s more of a project than you might realize, but I think it sounds great.
• Mounted combat
  Another big one. Attacking from horseback would be epic.
• Dragon mounts
  Whaa? Even in the game’s main plot when you fly on the back of a dragon, they fudge the effect. If they can pull this off, it will be amazing.
• Dungeon enhancements : handing structures and moving platforms
  Whoa. This sounds like it would create platforming in dungeons. Perhaps a bit too late for anything but add-on DLC, but it sounds cool.
• Fat giants
  Haha. Sounds good.
• Ice and Fire arrows
  Why not?
• Werebear
  Interesting. Just a reskin of the werewolf, I’d imagine.
• Lycanthropy skill tree
  Wow. A whole new skill tree. Considering how useless the werewolf form is, I’ll take it.
• Vampire Feeding
  I didn’t realize that this wasn’t already in place, having never been a vampire.
• Become a flying vampire lord
  Flying? Wow. This I would try.
• Vampire Imp Minions
  Imps were another monster from my wishlist.
• “Waygates” for fast travel
  Considering that fast travel already exists, I’m not sure of the point, but I’m willing to check it out.
• Flow-based water shader
  This could look really nice.
• Kill Cams for Magic and Ranged Combat
  I hadn’t thought about the fact that they don’t exist, but… they don’t exist. Adding them would be nice.
• Paralysis runes
  This must be high-level, but I’d use it often. Paralysis is the most powerful magic in the game.
• Water currents in dungeons
  I’d go for a mod just to strengthen all water currents. I’ve barely ever been pushed by water.
• New commands for followers: Combat style, set favorite equipment, etc.
  I use followers so rarely that I probably wouldn’t notice.
• Adopt a child
  Seems cruel, given that I’d be away adventuring so much that you’d have to categorize me as criminally neglectful.
• Build your own home
  I’m not quite sure how this would work, but I’m interested. Apparently, you can also have a skeleton butler. Personally, I’d prefer a monkey butler, but I’ll take what I can get.
• Spell combinations: Use flame and raise zombie to create a fire zombie
  Holy crap. Like Magicka? If they create enough combinations, this could be amazing.
• High-level Draugrs
  More powerful undead? Sure, why not?
• Epic mounts (flaming death horse)
  Seems a bit over-the-top for my taste.
• Kinect voice-activated shouts
  I still plan to try Thu’uMic,  but I think it’s awesome that someone is bringing this to the XBox. My console friends should be able to get some mod love too.
• Enhanced underwater visuals
  Sure. 
• Screen space ambient occlusion
  What?
• Giant mudcrab enemy
  Can I attack it for massive damage?

I’ll be watching closely for implementation of these features. If you’re interested, you can watch the video here.

Well, I’m finished with Bastion and I’m playing Skyrim – my Bosmer elf Leroy is already 11th level. But enough about Skyrim – I want to talk a bit about Bastion. I’ll say right out that I loved the game. Its music is one of the best parts of the game, but I also enjoyed the story and the unexpected twist. It’s no Heavy Rain twist, but I love when the story takes a turn that you never saw coming.

The gameplay and combat are very old-school, although they’re thankfully a great deal more forgiving than many other old school games. You may have heard about the game’s dynamic narration – the narrator will comment on actions that you take in the game as you take them, and his narration is keyed to certain progress points, so as you progress through a level, he’ll continue his progress in segments as you hit certain points. It works very well, and the guy is a great gravely-voiced voice actor who sounds like he’s stepped right out of a western.

It’s no Skyrim – you won’t be spending 50 hours in the game, but it is very good. You should buy the Steam version if you don’t own an XBox 360.

I’ll stop right here for a moment and admit that all this preface about the Humble Indie bundles is so that I can write about Atom Zombie Smasher, but the bundles are good, and the background info is good info.

The first bundle included World of Goo, Aquaria, Gish, Penumbra: Overture, Lugaru, and Samarost 2. Of these, I enjoyed World of Goo and Penumbra: Overture and didn’t so much love the others.

The second bundle was much better. It included Cortex Command, Machinarium, Revenge of the Titans, Osmos, and Braid. By the time I’d gotten this bundle, I’d already played Braid, loved it, and written a hint series about the game on this site. The one from this bundle that grabbed me was Osmos, wherein you play a tiny amoeba trying to envelop and “eat” smaller amoebas and thus gain mass in order to eat increasingly larger amoebas. It’s a really good game, although the later levels get way too difficult. I believe that Osmos is now available on iOS, and I highly recommend it.

I never tried the unnumbered “Humble Frozenbyte Bundle” but I recently dug into the third bundle for the first time. I quickly learned that Hammerfight‘s controls were a bit wonky for my taste and And Yet It Moves didn’t hold my attention. I’d played the flash version of VVVVVV previously and didn’t feel the need to jump back in, although I’ve heard more than one person rave about that game. Cogs is one I played for about a dozen puzzle/levels before growing tired of the 3d puzzle-slider mechanic, and Steel Storm is a fun old school shoot-em-up that I continue to play bit by bit. Crayon Physics Deluxe is a game I took notice of long ago, when it was still in development. The premise was very creative and cool, much like Scribblenauts. But like Scribblenauts, the implementation somehow didn’t quite measure up.

Lastly, my favorite game in the bundle, which is my favorite game in any of the bundles. It might be my overall favorite game that I’m playing currently. Atom Zombie Smasher.

Atom Zombie Smasher is done by Blendo Games, who made the amazing Gravity Bone, which I featured long ago in Free Game Friday. After having seen what great stuff Blendo puts out, I’m going to have to revisit their catalog.

In Atom Zombie Smasher, you coordinate the response to a worldwide zombie outbreak. Your playing field is a map of multiple territories, and both you and the zombies score points on a victory track. The default setting has a 2000 point victory condition, but there are many settings to tweak. The zombies score one point per citizen that they convert into a zombie, and 10/20/30/40 points each round for level 1, 2, 3, or 4 outbreak areas. You score one point per citizen you rescue, and 20 points per round for each territory you capture. There are also certain milestones along each victory track at which specific events will occur – each side can unlock new abilities. For example, you can begin to rescue scientist and can gain access to orbital cannons and llama bombs. The zombies can increase their rate of infestation and begin to create super-zeds.

But this outer strategic level is only a housing for the meat of the game, wherein you evacuate citizens from the city. You first get a setup phase, where you can position snipers, ground troops, landmines, dynamite charges, and barricades. Then you click “begin” and the zombies begin coming. You set an evacuation point, and the citizens rush to it while the zombies pursue. You do your best to hold the zombies back while minimizing civilian casulaties, but the trick is that any citizen caught by a zombie becomes a zombie. Rescuing scientists can unlock new upgrades, and things like zombie bait, artillery, and the orbital catbird cannon help a lot. And if you take too long and night falls, even more zombies show up.

The game is very difficult, but very fun. I have yet to win a campaign, but I’ll be playing this one for quite some time.

Recently, I finished my first playthrough of Dragon Age: Origins, which is easily the best game of 2009. And while I’m already well into my second playthrough, I’ve got a lot to say about the game. I’ll try to keep mention of any game-specific events very vague to avoid spoilers, but if you’re extremely sensitive to anything that might be vaguely construed as a spoiler, be forewarned.

I played on the PC, which from what I’ve heard is the best platform on which to experience Dragon Age. As the game is a spiritual successor to the Baldur’s Gate series, I was almost surprised to see it appear on consoles, although I’m sure that the appearance of XBox 360 and PS3 versions boosted sales substantially.

More than anything else, what struck me about Dragon Age is the emotional impact the game’s story and characters had on me. From the moment my character’s family was slain in the origin story to the brutal reality of the Grey Warden joining ceremony to the tragedy at Ostagar, the game’s events struck a chord with me. When characters died, I felt empathy for the loss that the game characters were feeling. When Alistair and I triumphed, I felt a camaraderie with my brother-in-arms. And when I said the wrong thing and upset Leliana, I felt the feeling of foot-in-mouth that only males can feel when talking to a significant other. The game’s writing and characters are simply excellent.

In so many games, when something bad happens, I’ll reload from a save. But I was so engrossed in the story of Dragon Age that when my character was captured and his equipment taken, I continued playing and forced myself to accept the loss of my best weapons and armor. And I felt a real sense of loss, as if I’d lost some real physical property – those were some really nice weapons, and I lost the grand master runestones too.

My main character was a rogue, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Dragon Age gives you three character classes, and unlike in other RPGs, no class ever feels useless. Many times I’ve played RPGs and found that the bard class, the monk class, or even the thief class was severely underpowered and unbalanced. But with Dragon Age and its three classes, that never ends up being the case. The mage is exactly what you’d expect: weak in toe-to-toe combat unless given time to prepare defensive magic, but powerful in terms of ranged attack and control spells. The fighter and rogue classes are both huge damage-dealers in close melee, but the fighter is generally the armored tank, whereas the bulk of the rogue’s damage comes from skill use and backstabs, which makes tactical positioning very important.

For the majority of the game, I had Alistair and Wynne with my main character. Alistair is simply an amazingly powerful tank, and since I’d alienated Morrigan early on in the game, Wynne was the only mage available to me. For my final character slot, I rotated between Leliana, Shale, and my dog who I named “Burton”, after Jack Burton. In my second playthrough, I’m making heavy use of Sten, Morrigan, and Zevran, none of whom I really used in my first playthrough.

It’s hard not to compare Dragon Age to the old Infinity Engine games, i.e. Baldur’s Gate, Icewind Dale. But while they compare favorably on most counts, having better graphics, a better UI that shows you spell effect areas before casting, and very well-crafted custom game mechanics, the one thing I found lacking was exploration. One of the joys of Baldur’s Gate was tromping through areas of wilderness, caves and dungeons that weren’t related to the main plot, and dozens of other areas that were purely optional. Dragon Age has none of that. While there are many areas that are off the beaten path, they generally appear as a linear portion of one of the game’s main quests. Few are optional.

Not to knock Minsc and Boo, but the characters in Dragon Age are better than the characters in Baldur’s Gate in every respect. I remember Yoshimo’s betrayal, I remember Minsc losing Dynaheir, and I remember Imoen coming out as your character’s sister, but none of them stand out like the character moments that Alistair and Morrigan have in Dragon Age. And only Minsc’s dialogue could ever approach the hilarious writing Bioware put into characters like Alistair and Oghren. “Well, fart me a lullaby!”

My second character is a mage, and she’ll be a bit looser on the ethical points than my first character was, so as to see some different plot. I’ve already recruited werewolves and templars rather than elves and mages. The game told me that I’ve seen less than half of Dragon Age’s content, so I look forward to seeing what else is out there.

Peoples’ main objections to gaming on a PC tend to be twofold: firstly, that gaming PCs are too expensive. Secondly, that installation and troubleshooting in a Windows environment are a pain. I’ll certainly agree that consoles are easier to use, but in my opinion the advantages of gaming with a PC far outweigh the disadvantages. Plus, I hate playing shooters without a mouse.

As far as expenses, I tend to spend roughly $1000 every five years or so on a new gaming PC, and perhaps I’ll upgrade my graphics card once for each PC. So we’re talking about maybe $2500 or so each decade. Ten years is a long time – it averages out to about $20 per month. And gaming is by no means the only thing I use the PC for. Best of all, when you do get a new PC, the old one is likely still viable for other things. I’ve turned my old gaming PC into a media server, and I use it to store all my music, movies, and photos.

People rave about the great graphics on their 1080p displays when they play XBox 360 or PS3 games, but I haven’t played a game in 1080p on the PC in years. I’m currently running games at 1680×1050. If you have a decent graphics card, you can boost the graphics on a PC well above 1080p without much trouble. And if it’s a newer game that’s more graphically demanding, the PC will scale. You can change your graphics options to achieve a balance between graphics and performance.

Also, games on the PC tend to be $10 less than their console counterparts. If you play a lot of games, those increments of $10 will start adding up, making your investment in the PC a good one.

Another thing I really enjoy with the PC is the ability to replay older games using mods. Whether it’s replaying the original Baldur’s Gate using EasyTutu, running Thief: Deadly Shadows with improved textures and remapped mouse controls, installing Circle of Eight’s mods for Temple of Elemental Evil, or using the wealth of modifications available for Oblivion, user-created mods have greatly increased the replayability of some already excellent older games.

One of the few shortcomings I see with PC gaming is that aside from the few games that implement the terrible Games for Windows Live system, PC games have no achievements. There are Steam Achievements for a few Steam games such as Plants vs Zombies and the Half-Life 2 episodes, but PC games tend to not have the same online connectivity as XBox 360 and even PS3 games. But services like Raptr now provide desktop clients and gamercards that you can post online. I use Raptr’s desktop client, and have coded the gamercards on the left sidebar of this site to read data directly from Raptr so that I don’t have to do anything manually. Unless I play a PS3 game like Trine.

Call me a PC fanboy, I don’t care.

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

Because of the emphasis on its high-end hardware requirements, I didn’t try Crysis until long after its initial release. When I finally did, I found that while it wasn’t as amazing a game as its predecessor Far Cry, it was still an excellent game. The jet-piloting and zero-G segments were fairly terrible, but were also mercifully brief. I had a lot of fun with the game, and I’m ready to dub it a keeper.

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

As Lore Sjoberg once brilliantly put it, video games and movies get along like cats made of oil and dogs made of water. Aside from Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, there are no good movies based on video games. No! Shut up. I don’t want to hear about Doom, Resident Evil, or anything Uwe Boll has come within a furlong of.

On the flip side of the coin, you have video games based on movies. While the good ones may still be rare, they’re likely still countable on your fingers unless your name is Frodo. The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay is one of a rare breed: very good games that are based on movie properties. I’ve played through Escape From Butcher Bay twice now, and it’s likely that I will again. I can’t think of a shooter that has better stealth mechanics, although Dark Messiah of Might and Magic comes close. Lurking in the Pitch Dark (har har) and seeing every move your enemies make while they can’t see you at all is loads of fun. But that’s Riddick.

I just bought a copy of Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena for $5 from Direct2Drive. I hope it’s as good as the original.

After much anticipation, the free promotional game for Dragon Age is out and playable. You can sign into EA’s servers while playing and unlock various items which you can then use in Dragon Age: Origins. There are also five achievements.

After playing, I have to say I was a bit surprised – this is really a whole game. Much more than you’d generally expect from a little promotional flash game. The turn-based combat has some depth, you can create a character and form a party, equip them and pick their skills from a skill tree. I’ve only finished about a third of it so far, but I plan to go through the game in its entirety before Dragon Age: Origins releases on November 3rd.

Play Dragon Age Journeys: The Deep Roads

Keepers is a weekly segment in which I discuss games I’ve played that I’ve seen fit to keep after playing. I generally sell a game that I’ve finished, so the only reason I keep one is because I plan to replay the game some day. Classifying a game as a “keeper” is generally a badge of merit.

While waiting for the release of Borderlands, I’ve been re-playing Half-Life 2, Episode 2. I think I’d forgotten what amazingly good games the entire Half-Life 2 series is. Beginning with Half-Life 2, and continuing in Episode 1 and 2, Valve tells shows a deep story about the invasion of planet Earth by an extradimensional race known as The Combine. They defeat humanity in what’s later called The Seven Hour War, and quickly subjugate the human race. Gordon Freeman returns with the help of the mysterious G-Man, and with aid from the human resistance and some members of another enslaved alien race, “vortigaunts”, he manages to escape from City 17 and go on to aid the resistance in fighting The Combine.

While the original Half-Life was an amazing game for its time, what really grabs me about Half-Life 2 is the story, the setting, and the characters. I’ve probably played through the man game two and a half times, and I know that I will again someday. It’s probably my second favorite video game, close on the heels of Beyond Good and Evil.

There is more to say about Half-Life 2 than I can fit into this small non-review, but I’ll try to fit it all concisely. Half-Life 2 still has the best graphics I’ve seen in just about any game, yet will run on an old machine with a 700mhz processor, 128 mB of RAM and a 64 mB video card. Half-Life 2 has the absolutely best voice acting and character animation I’ve ever seen in any game. Alyx Vance and Professor Kleiner might as well be real people. A scene at the end of episode 2 very nearly made me cry. And I don’t think I’ve ever cried at a movie. Half-Life 2 has such a fantastic storyline and setting that I always want to know more about what happens in that world and how the war between the Combine and the human resistance is going.

Half-Life 2 and every bit of extra content they put out for the game is a keeper if I’ve ever seen one.