Have you heard of Torchlight? It’s a really cool-looking Diablo-like beat-em-up RPG available tomorrow on Steam for $20. It’s got three classes, pets, random levels, and a level editor. Very nice.

Final Fantasy XII is only the second game in the series I’ve ever completed. And it took me forever to play all the way through. I mean, seriously, I think it took me over two years. I put the game aside for 4-6 months at a time more than once while I was playing through other games, but even taking that into account, my final play time is over 100 hours. Not nearly what I put into Oblivion or Ultima V, but still quite a lot of time.

As I think back on the game, I go back and forth between feeling very fond of the characters and locations and feeling ambivalent about the game overall. I found the game’s plot a bit difficult to follow in the same way that the political machinations of Palpatine in the Star Wars prequel movies was murky. If I really stop and focus on either, I can tell you what’s going on, but it’s so convoluted that I quickly forget when I’m not directly thinking about it. I’d much prefer the more straightforward storytelling you can find in RPGs like Oblivion, Baldur’s Gate, or any of the Ultima series. Perhaps it’s the fact that it’s made in Japan. My personal experience with JRPGs is not extensive. I’ve never played any of the Chrono Trigger, Xenogears, Grandia, or Shining Force games. I’ve never played Odin Sphere, Final Fantasy VII, or Dark Cloud. I tried Vagrant Story briefly, and I loved Dragon Quest IV and Phantasy Star I both so much that I later bought and played through the Nintendo DS remakes. But there’s definitely a certain aesthetic that goes along with JRPGs, and it can be a bit off-putting.

Having an entire party of characters but only being able to use three at any given time is a mechanic I remember from having played Final Fantasy IX. It’s odd. But the six main characters in the game are very well fleshed out. Vaan and Penelo are the stereotypical teenaged street kids with a stake in what’s going on. They’re friends, and there’s a hint of something more between them. The game does an excellent job of showing their playful good-natured immature side during cutscenes. Contrast that with Basch, a very serious honor-obsessed type who wouldn’t smile if Penelo’s shirt fell off. Balthier is a dashing Han Solo sky pirate, and his companion is a Viera – a strange magical humanoid with rabbit ears. Yeah – the Japanese have some kind of weird thing with furries. Lastly is Ashe, the woman meant to be queen. She’s obsessed with yet simultaneously afraid of power. The game sets up some excellent character conflicts.

The way magic works in this universe is interesting. I’m not talking about the spells with their lame -ara, -aga, -aja suffixes, I’m talking about the existence of “mist”, “magicite” and “nethicite” as powerful raw magical forces. Obtaining more “mist charges” and using them to enact “quickenings” is a very interesting mechanic, although very Final Fantasy in its presentation and execution. Ditto the summonable “espers” who must first be defeated and can then be summoned at will. While the espers aren’t much use in actual practice, the notion of their existence is an interesting facet of the setting. One of my favorite part of magic are “palings”. In practice in the game, they’re actually a huge pain since they prevent either magic or physical attacks from having any effect on an enemy, or else screw the player over in some other way. But the word “paling” along with its effect somehow brings to mind the kind of magic that would exist in the world of The Wheel of Time.

Another thing that struck me about the game is the sheer amount of content Square Enix was able to fit onto a single DVD. This is a Playstation 2 game, and it has the best graphics I’ve ever seen on the Playstation 2. The fact that all these very long cutscenes as well as the entire game can fit into a single DVD is damned impressive. And although I’ve always heard it said that Metal Gear Solid is the game with crazy long cutscenes, I don’t think it’s got much on Final Fantasy XII.

When the game finally ended, my characters were about level 50, some of them a bit lower. And I didn’t really have much trouble defeating the end bosses. But there was so very much left to do in the game. So many more sidequests, so many more level VI and VII hunts that I never attempted, more espers, more unexplored areas. Were I so inclined, or were I 14 years old again, I could probably spend another 100 hours in the game without repeating things too much.

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.

Hi, this post is about Trine, REAL TRINE. This post is awesome. My name is Greg and I can’t stop thinking about Trine. This game is cool; and by cool, I mean totally sweet.

Facts:

1. Trine is a video game.
2. Trine releases on PSN today. Finally.
3. The goal in Trine is to flip out and kill people. Well, not really.

You can play the game with up to three players, and my wife and I plan on going through the whole thing co-op. The game has plenty of trophies, so it should be interesting to try to get as many of them as possible. The only question left: on whose profile do we play the game?

I’ve been a staunch boycotter of all EA Madden football games since they locked up the exclusive rights to the NFL license in 2005. I was never a big Madden fan to begin with, but when they removed the option of any competition to their games it left a very bad taste in my mouth. This ended the life of my favorite football series, the 2K games from Sega, so I haven’t played a console football game in about seven years. Thanks EA!

However, a recent announcement may have me changing my mind. EA is still the only game in town, but they’ve announced a new football title called Madden NFL Arcade. This will be a downloadable title for $15 over PSN or XBLA, and instead of the heavy simulation fare of Madden it will feature 5-on-5 sandbox gameplay. Standard rules are suspended; the first person to 30 points wins and players can get power-ups during the game. This sounds a lot like the old arcade baller Blitz, which I had some fun with back in the day.

This title might be just different enough to let me bypass my Anti-Madden directives and pick it up. It sounds very casual, which is perfect for me. My days of playing entire seasons in a single weekend and obsessing over player stats are long gone. I’ll still boycott the yearly Madden titles until the NFL license opens up to other developers, but Madden Arcade might finally get me back into the console football game.

Lots of people have apparently been familiar with Alice and Kev for some time now, but I just found out. And I read the entire story in one day. It’s really super-interesting.

I’ve never played a Sims game, but the story of a mean-spirited homeless man and his young daughter as told by this video game was sad, funny, touching, and certainly gripping.

Read Alive and Kev

Blizzard has released another one. Watching these, I can totally see how Starcraft is a spectator sport in Korea.

I’m kind of half and half on my response here as I don’t completely agree with Greg on the “overrated” status of the games he mentions, but with the exception of KOTOR, I ain’t exactly in love with ’em either, just for different reasons.

Now, when it comes to Knights of the Old Republic, I must respectfully ask Greg where he gets his drugs as this is, hands down one of the best Star Wars games ever made.  Sure the battles sometimes got wonky, but I have three words that makes any problems with the combat magically melt away: dual wielded lightsabers.  Yes, that’s right.  Long blade in the one hand, short in the off and away you went.  Not only could you dual wield lightsabers but you could customize your sabers based on the crystals you put in them to make your blades even more effective.  My on hand was a normal sized purple blade that buffed my light force power and had increased deflections as well as increased damage.  Off hand was a shorter yellow blade that did extra damage to droids and increased my defense.  I was a bad motherfucker.  Droids, soldiers, Sith, it didn’t matter.  I’d cut ’em or deflect a bold in their  face.  In the end they all died.  This was the first game to show you just how powerful the Jedi of old were supposed to be.  None of this “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for” bullshit and meditating for ten seconds to life a rock three feet off of the ground.  These were badass Jedi warriors who kicked ass and took names.  The awesome story twist was just gravy.  The only complaint I had about the game was that the final battle was way too tedious if you undertook it with a character that focused mostly on healing and defensive Force powers and way too easy if you went full on Dark Side.  Oh well, guess it pays to be evil.

Now I found BioShock to be a hell of a lot more immersive than you do, but I played it on the 360 and it ran smooth as silk which helped a great deal.  What I fell in love with about BioShock was Rapture.  The setting was, simply put, amazing.  The fact that they could flesh out this world so well using the audio logs made it even more endearing.  Unfortunately they fell short with the moral choices which didn’t really amount to much at all other than a choice between two equally unsatisfying endings.  I also found the boss batle surprisingly pedestrian for a game that had been doing some pretty innovative things up until that point.  So while I don’t think Greg is completley off the mark for not loving BioShock, I think it’s better than he does and I also thought it was better than Half-Life 2, even if Robert Guillaume wasn’t in it.

Finally we have Mass Effect.  This was a game that I would have loved a lot more had I not gone for the full thousand points.  If you just do one run through the game the combat can be annoying at times, but you can get over it.  By the third time however every time your squadmates spend ten minutes unloading into a wall, or worse, into their squadmate’s back you want to punch someone.  Plenty of games can stand the test of time and be enjoyable no matter how many times you go back to them however this game ain’t one of them.  The MAKO sucks even more when you have to drive it again, the texture pop is even shittier by the twelfth time you run down the same hallway in the Citadel and the long, tedious elevator rides make you want to gouge your eyes out.  Now, that being said, every time I’ve finished this game I have started a new game right up because the last hour is just that thrilling and this is even when I started my third run and knew exactly what was in store for me.  Something about that final trek up the side of the Citadel as a space battle rages around you to taking on Saren with your buffed up squad gets me all a flutter and makes me want to jump right back in.  It’s a shame that the DLC they dropped since the game’s initial release ranged from so-so for Bring Down the Sky to “can I please kick you in the nuts for wasting my time and money?” for Pinnacle Station because instead of getting me excited for ME2, it just made me mad that I had to spend the money on it so that I could keep my perfect score in the game.  Sure that’s just as much my OCD as anything else, but I’d like to know what genius decided that the best idea for DLC was to take the worst part of the game (the combat) and build DLC entirely around it.  What’s next, the Oblivion Conversation Generator?  Oh, you say you’ve seen a mudcrab?  Thrilling stuff.

So yeah, I think Greg is way off base on KOTOR, slightly off base on BioShock and on target with Mass Effect just for different reasons.  All in all it’s not exactly the fires of an epic internet flame war, but it’s a start.

I’m going to piss off a lot of people now by talking about how I think some of the best-loved games in the past few years weren’t actually that good. Much of this might have to do with my personal opinion of Bioware’s game engines, since two of my three example games here are from Bioware, but I can’t help but feel that they were overhyped and overrated.

Over the years, Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic has developed a near-legendary reputation as an excellent game. But while I found the story interesting and the twist at the end was very nice, it was the gameplay that I found to be lacking. The combat boiled down to selecting an attack and running up to your enemy, then watching while the attacks were carried out, with the combatants standing there and waiting in between attacks. This certainly isn’t a mechanic exclusive to KotOr – even World of Warcraft (if I speculate correctly) uses this type of combat mechanic. I don’t like it. And while perhaps the same thing could be said about games I do love such as Baldur’s Gate and Final Fantasy XII, I find it much easier to view those two games as pseudo-turn-based games. KotOR feels like more of an action game, and as such the engine and the gameplay seemed very off-putting to me.

Jade Empire, as a game, had a lot in common with Knights of the Old Republic. But I enjoyed Jade Empire more because the combat engaged the player more by requiring a keypress for each attack and block. In that way, Jade Empire was more action game than RPG, whereas KotOR was more RPG than action game. I loves me some RPG, but not when it’s done with an engine like KotOR’s. I had the same complaint about Neverwinter Nights, which in my mind succeeded despite the poor engine and gameplay. But the main reason I liked Neverwinter Nights was the bundled Aurora creaton tool, with which I spent an ungodly amount of time. I’m not saying that Knights of the Old Republic was a bad game – I certainly did enjoy it – I just didn’t enjoy it as much as everyone else seemed to.

The second game on my “overrated” list is Bioshock. Bioshock had a lot of promise. When I saw the hallways beginning to flood at the beginning of the game, it was exciting. Here I am in an underwater city – maybe gunfire breaking these underwater tunnels will be a common mechanic! Maybe I’ll occasionally have to escape from tunnels before they flood! Alas – the danger is only imagined, and the flooding only happens that once.

Bioshock’s story was good, and the game was very atmospheric, largely due to the much-vaunted graphics. But on my machine, the game absolutely chugged, even at medium settings. I found myself comparing it to Half-Life 2, which was the best-looking game I’d seen at the time. On my machine, Half-Life 2 actually looked better, and ran far more smoothly.

Graphics aside, Bioshock didn’t have as good a story exposition as Half-Life 2 and didn’t have characters that I fell in love with in the way that I fell in love with Alyx Vance, Dog, and Dr. Kleiner. The camera and pipeworks hacking mechanics were cool, but what fell short was the je ne sais quoi – that certain charm that some games have and others don’t. Bioshock didn’t charm me. It received a solid meh.

The final game in my triumvirate of overration is Mass Effect. (*Greg ducks*)

I’ve got a lot of the same complaints about Mass Effect as I did about Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. It felt more like the game engine you’d see in a point-and-click adventure and less like the engine you’d see in a shooter. In The Totally Rad Show‘s PAX episode, they mentioned that Mass Effect 2 feels “more shootery”, which is very promising, but the whole thing makes me slightly nervous about my much-looked-forward-to Dragon Age: Origins.

Mass Effect had a really interesting story. I loved the notion of an ancient über-powerful race of alien robots who destroy civilization periodically. But they didn’t end up feeling as badass as I’d have liked. They should have felt more like the Borg did in “Q Who?”

All in all, I did enjoy each of these three games. But they weren’t amazing, they were just okay.