Games you missed: The Witcher

August 3rd, 2010 • No comments

The Witcher is a PC RPG. It was developed in Eastern Europe. Those two traits taken together have a pronounced stigma. Games developed in this part of the world (particularly PC games) are thought to be buggy, unfinished, or broken despite some inevitable interesting ideas. Spoken dialog will, most likely, be awkward and poorly done. Crashes are expected. The Witcher is often lumped with other games and scoffed at by most gamers. There are always players willing to put up with the problems of any game to find the deeply buried redeeming qualities. Developers of these types of games have their own band of cheerleaders willing to overlook or downplay almost any faults. Therefore, it’s easy for the average gamer to write off the praise The Witcher has garnered as the same sort of sentiment some players feel for other seriously flawed games. The Witcher needs none of that. The Witcher is a gem of a game combining the polish of big-budget US developed RPGs (I’m looking at you, BioWare.) while presenting a slightly darker, more mature story than those counterparts.

Geralt is a witcher, a phenomenon described best by someone else (I don’t recall who.) as a dark medieval version of a Jedi. He has the strength of many mortal men and commands magical powers. Geralt is a very nuanced character and much of that nuance is up to the player with a refreshing lack of contrivance like the prescribed morality of recent games like inFAMOUS, and, to a lesser extent, Mass Effect 2. What I mean is this: those games give you choices, but the game already knows which choice is the good choice and which is the bad choice. This allows the game to shape outcomes of events based on whether you are basically good or basically evil. It makes sense in the context of a game. The Witcher, however, emulates the Dragon Age approach giving you multiple choices, each with consequences, none being clearly “good” or “evil.” In fact, the word “emulates” is a terrible choice here as the game pre-dates BioWare’s epic by more than two years.

Just as I claim this game doesn’t have the caveats of those other wacky PC games, I must say the game does have its own caveats although they are few and minor. The edition you will be buying if you should buy today is the enhanced edition which includes additional animation and corrected translations. This edition fixed some problems people had with the dialog in the original version. In its current incarnation, the dialog is not up to the standard of something like Uncharted 2, but it is more than serviceable. The voice actor playing the part of Geralt is excellent and has an appropriate soft-spoken gravelly quality befitting to his appearance. The biggest problem I have had with the game is the opening sequence. It is something of a tutorial in a confined area which is a very poor representation of the game which lies ahead. After an hour or two of being stuck in this small area, having your hand held everywhere you go leading you from one quest into another, the game sets you free into a much larger play area. The entire world is not open a la the Bethesda games, but describing the area as “open” is not inaccurate. You will receive both story quests and side-quests which you may complete at your leisure while within that area. Later, the game will move you into another large area. The game has proceeded like that through the first three chapters and appears to be continuing along that path. I am currently about to move on and have been told by an NPC that I should finish anything I want in this area before moving on as I may be unable to return.

Having played Dragon Age, the game is quite refreshing. It doesn’t need to maintain a strict battle/story rhythm. It’s content to let me spend half an hour talking with town bigwigs trying to feel my way through the political climate of the area. The story is excellent making this approach very successful. When combat does occur, it feels gimmicky early. The physical attacks are based on a rhythm. If you initiate each attack in the sequence with proper timing, you will continue the combo allowing you to perform the bigger hits later in the combo. Later, you’ll start picking up new “signs” (the game’s spells) and recipes to make the battles a bit more interesting. For the most part, combat is quick and doesn’t get in the way of the real meat of the game.

I have logged 30 hours in the game right now and have no plans of slowing down. The game is paced perfectly for a working person like myself. I can sit down with the game for 30 minutes to an hour a couple of nights a week and have an intensely satisfying experience in which I have advanced my character and some sub-plots by doing a couple of side missions in addition to advancing the main story of the game slightly. The pacing complements that nicely.

What can I write about The Witcher which hasn’t been written, and why would I write it now? This is simply stale, right? That might be true if not for a fantastic sale at GamersGate where the game is on offer for $6.78! This is no sponsored post nor am I earning any sort of commission. I picked the game back up a couple of months back after two false starts where I quit before finishing the tutorial and thought this the perfect opportunity to pass this gem on to you, dear reader. If you buy the game and enjoy it, please keep your eyes peeled because information has been trickling out about The Witcher 2 since the big reveal at E3. The developer has coded their own engine rather than repurposing an old BioWare engine as they did for the first game. Even though the repurposing worked remarkably well, this should allow them to edge closer to their vision.

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Torchlight Texture Project v1.2

July 31st, 2010 • No comments

I suspect many of my gaming readers may already own Torchlight. Hell, they’ve practically been giving it away on Steam. It has been offered at $5 no less than twice and $10 countless times since its release a few months ago. Some of the draw for many players is in the form of the low system requirements. The game even employs a “Netbook mode” in its options although I still doubt it would run on most of the glorified calculators which carry that moniker. This advantage is something of a double-edged sword for many as this leaves the graphics looking slightly sub-par even in the higher detail levels. Behold! The Torchlight Texture Project!

This is a replacement for many of the textures in the game. I don’t know exactly every single texture which was replaced, and I believe even the author(s?) of the project seems to have lost count at this point. Suffice it to say that a large chunk of this game looks quite a lot better thanks to some nice high-resolution textures. It doesn’t at all break the style of the art in the game. Install away without fear!

About this whole “installation” business. The installation of the mod is pretty easy, but it isn’t quite as simple as the author makes it out to be if you haven’t installed any other mods for Torchlight. Yes, you should simply drop the extracted folder into Torchlight’s “mods” folders, but that folder isn’t conveniently located in the program’s installation folder. Instead, you’ll find it at “%appdata%\Runic Games\Torchlight\mods” which you are welcome to copy and paste into your “Run” dialog box at will. If you’re on Windows 7, you should try “%appdata%\Roaming\Runic Games\Torchlight\mods” instead. On the Mac, you need to hit “~/library/application support/runic games/torchlight/mods” to install the mod.

Enjoy your newfound graphical fidelity. If you own the game on Steam and have never installed a TL mod before, you’ll also get a small surprise when you boot the mod for the first time!

Abstracting hardware: obsolescence obsolete (with OnLive)

March 25th, 2009 • 1 comment

OnLiveMost everyone has heard the news of OnLive, the new cloud-based computer gaming platform. I’m not here to regurgitate that for you. Instead, I intend to give it some context.

Cloud computing is all the rage right now. With netbooks growing in popularity, all sorts of Internet-based services are popping up to make the experience of owning a netbook more rich. OnLive applies this model to PC gaming while broadening its appeal way beyond the netbook crowd. Where an app like Google Documents might outsource a little processor load and some data storage, OnLive’s system will send all of the intense load to your CPU and graphics card associated with PC gaming to a monstrous computer hundreds of miles away. The benefits are clear. While existing web apps have sold themselves to the typical PC user on convenience (e.g. the ability to access documents anywhere), this is the only service I can think of that has a chance to sell itself by saving gamers significant money on the hardware that is typically necessary to run these intensive games… not to mention the dedication to keep up with frequent upgrades just to maintain the performance status-quo. An entry-level gaming PC is going to cost around $800. This system enables a $300 netbook to do the same thing by relegating every task associated with the game other than actual display of the resulting video stream.

There are also implications here for the established modes of game distribution. In my most recent post, I discussed a possibility for a new model of game distribution that does away with the physical product altogether, but that proposition did not suggest any fundamental shifts in the way gaming works—only the way they are distributed. Digital distribution platforms have gained significant popularity over the past year. OnLive’s distribution model is digital, but it seems to be something of a hybrid between GameTap and Steam. I honestly don’t understand the model entirely, but Steve Perlman claimed in an interview there will be tiers of service which suggests a subscription model while the interface’s options for either buying or renting any given title suggests a more traditional model of paying per title. This is serious competition on either front. Steam will have difficulty as games that are available for both services will have significantly lower requirements through OnLive. Subscription services like GameTap typically serve so-called “casual” gamers better and contain few if any new release hardcore games. OnLive is coming into this with major partnerships with huge publishers (and committments for simultaneous release with retail) to give it some more muscle.

For the numerous advantages, this service already has a few small disadvantages I can see. First, the max resolution being quoted right now is 720p which is a bit behind the times. I understand there are now Internet bandwidth considerations as the resolution increases, and I’m sure that is the reason for this choice. It doesn’t make it any better for gamers that crave high fidelity experience with their PC gaming and are accustomed to running 1920×1200 or higher resolutions on their PCs. Second, with any digital distribution model comes concerns about consumer issues. As with other similar platforms, many consumers will likely not be comfortable with the license they are actually purchasing. Every software purchase is merely a license whether or not you receive a physical product, but, frankly, it is much easier for software publishers to enforce unreasonable demands in a license while they still control the software. If I have a disc, I can always resell it whereas a digital software purchase may be impossible to transfer.

For all my excitement, I am sceptical. It sounds much to good to be true. The only way we’ll know (before an actual launch, that is) is by getting in on the beta which should start this summer. If OnLive launches at an attractive price, good performance, and reasonable licensing agreements, this may be the Trojan horse that brings PC gaming back to the forefront.

A new games distribution model

March 24th, 2009 • No comments

1UpI just posted on the 1Up forums my ideas for a new model for games distribution that might help the industry escape the wrath of economic recession. I thought I should repost it here to direct readers’ attention toward it and get some feedback.

I’ve been listening to lots of discussion about the problems the industry faces moving deeper into recession with the current software distribution model. I have some ideas and want to get everyone’s feedback so here it goes.

I’m admittedly on the outside of the industry, but some of the major problems as I perceive them are

  1. Lack of retail shelf space for software and difficulties negotiating with retailers
  2. Inability to abandon retail distribution due to lack of broadband in many areas and for fear of alienating retailers
  3. Publisher perception that used game sales undercut publisher and developer profits

Here is a single solution that, while incomplete, attempts to address these problems: A fully digital distribution model that allows for purchase of software from home via the Internet or at the retail store by way of software kiosks. The DSi and, if the rumors are correct, the next PSP may already be prepared to support such a model. Gamers will still be able to purchase games at the kiosk which will allow publishers to reach gamers that do not have access to the Internet connection necessary to download a large game. This will also allow retailers to share in software revenue compelling them to continue stocking the hardware. Shelf space is no longer an issue. Every store can carry every available title. Gamers with broadband will benefit by not having to travel in order to purchase games; every game will be available online. Used games will be a thing of the past as there will be no physical product which can be resold based on current digital purchase licensing arrangements. (Honestly, as a consumer, I find this part troubling, but I also see it as an inevitable reality.)

Any thoughts?

iDracula update

March 23rd, 2009 • No comments

iDracula updateThe developer has released a meaty update to the fantastic iPhone dual-stick shooter iDracula (my review). It includes two new levels, new weapons, and new game modes. It really adds quite a lot to a game that was already well worth the cost of admission. If you were waiting, maybe this is the incentive you were waiting for.

Video: Automated online bargain hunting

March 20th, 2009 • No comments

Grab the savingsOnline shopping has opened up for many of us a shopping world that was totally alien before it. Online retailers are competing with every other store you can think of which makes the competition fierce. They also sell large quantities of items which opens up room for deep discounts never before imagine by B&M retailers. Computers and the Internet also make it easier to shop. Here is a technique that automates the entire bargain hunting process. If you want something and a have a few weeks to wait, use this procedure, and there’s a good chance you’ll find a deal you never thought possible.

First, you’ll need a Gmail account. If you already have one, you’ll probably need an additional one. Second, you will need a Yahoo account for use with Yahoo Alerts.

Use the procedure described in the video, sit back, and watch the deals roll in!

 

Here are some great feeds to subscribe to in order to get the most out of this system:

That should get you started. If you find other feeds I may have missed, please post them in the comments. Thanks for watching. I’ll have a new episode on April 3rd.

Download the podcast

iPhone review: geoDefense

March 18th, 2009 • 1 comment

geoDefenseThere was a short period of about a month just after the app store went live that there were no tower defense games whatsoever. Now, that space is much more crowded and with good reason. The iPhone is a gaming platform excellently equipped for the tower defense genre of which geoDefense is a solid example.

There are two basic variations of the genre. Some games allow you to place towers anywhere, and the towers form the path the creeps will traverse (e.g. Fieldrunners). Others like geoDefense lay out a path for the creeps and allow placement of towers anywhere except on the path. This is my favored style. I prefer to concentrate on the strategy involved in placing towers rather than placing towers and constructing the most effective path.

geoDefenseThe place where geoDefense does the best at differentiating from other tower defense titles is its look. The graphics harken back to the vector graphics of old arcade games like Asteroids and Battlezone. This is an often used style, but the explosions in this game are really a sight to behold. At its more frenetic moments, the player will be treated to hundreds of colored particles exploding around the screen as he lays waste to hordes of creeps.

Unfortunately, the game takes few chances overall. There are a few new towers I haven’t seen in previous TD games (like a tower that collects energy from creep explosions feeding it back to towers for more powerful shots), but this does little to provide incentive to purchase this title over and above similar games on the app store. Towers are sometime introduced (and taken away) for particular missions which adds another layer of strategy to the game.

geoDefenseDisclosure: I am not and will not ever be competing on the pro circuit in strategy games. That said, I found this game more difficult than most. This is not a bad thing. Usually, I expect to coast through several waves of creeps in a new TD game. In geoDefense, I found myself scraping by even in the early levels on easy mode. I then tried the medium levels and found that they were very similarly difficult. The feeling ov even difficulty across easy and medium difficulties could have been because I became more skilled playing the easy levels and was better prepared to play on medium. The hard levels do feel significantly more difficult. This is where I first experienced the game actually removing access to a tower. It certainly achieved its desired effect.

In short, geoDefense is an excellent example of what it is: a simple tower defense game with excellent graphics. I would love to recommend it more highly because I really do think it is an excellent game. However, it takes virtually no risk and sticks to well-established conventions of tower defense games. I don’t necessarily need genres to be blended or anything like that, but I think there are some simple elements that could be added to make the game more compelling. I would love to see some sort of progression where it feels that my play in one scenario will actually affect my standing in the next. That would be a relatively simple feature that, if balanced properly, could really provide some incentive for reply.

Open vs. closed software platforms

March 16th, 2009 • No comments

OpenWindows is a rare breed: an open software platform that has seen a great deal of success. Open platforms are what people tend to think of when they think of software platforms in general because they are more accessible. If I’m thinking about a software platform not as a consumer but as a development platform, I’m probably going to think of something I myself would have easy access to develop on. Openness of a platform is something of a double-edged sword as it allows more choice for developers and users while also granting that same choice to developers who would love to wreak havoc for one reason or another in the form of viruses and malware. Openness also allows for careless developers to release buggy software that can cause problems for users and give the platform in general a bad name.

The earliest platforms were probably closed. If I am a university sitting on a computer that cost millions of dollars to build, I’m unlikely to allow just anyone to come through and run whatever software they please. Although they have arguably been around longer than open platforms, closed platforms have been mostly taken for granted up until the iTunes app store launched with tremendous success nearly overnight. Closed platforms allow for tighter controls on developers and crafting of a ore unified vision for the platform as a whole.

Windows has often been criticized for the litany of malicious software that has plagued it virtually since day one. Users of closed platforms most often do not have to worry about malicious software. Controls can be put in place to test software for any malicious intent. If something happens to sneak through to users, it will most likely be found and corrected in short order. This does not apply only to malicious software but has been useful to control content for creators of platform that want to portray a squeaky-clean image. This has been used recently by Apple in denying approval to developers of apps that defend the company’s taste in some way. Nintendo also utilized this to great effect by insuring that titles released on its consoles were more family-friendly than those available on competing platforms.

Tengen cartridge

This is an example of a Tengen cartridge released for the NES without Nintendo licensing.

The closed approach to the software platform also leaves companies vulnerable to backlash from both developers and users. Apple has felt this very recently on multiple occasions from initially restricting the availability of the now venerable sub-genre of mobile flatulence noise generators to their recent denial of the Twitter app Tweetie for it’s display of a swear word as a popular tag on the social network. Backlashes often create an underground of users and developers that find new ways to circumvent the closed systems and open them up. Apple has recently been on the attack against iPhone “jailbreaking“—the act of removing the iPhone’s protection against installation of unauthorized software. Jailbroken phones have recently gotten their own “app store” which provides developers and users a marketplace to buy and sell apps that, for one reason or another, went unapproved by Apple. Nintendo suffered from this as well in the late 80′s when developer Tengen reverse-engineered the NES lock-out chip to allow their games to run on NES consoles without approval.

Closed platforms allow for the party maintaining the platform to profit directly from the sale of software. Apple has deemed a charge of 30% is sufficient for their services of providing developers the tools, platform, and marketplace necessary for iPhone development. Microsoft has announced a similar mobile app store  that charges developers a yearly fee on top of a percentage of the sales revenue for apps. Gaming console makers have been charging licensing fees to software developers for many years now. In fact, game console hardware manufacturers often sell their hardware at a loss in anticipation of future software licensing revenue.

Because of the accessibility of open platforms and the lack of a centralized marketplace (although there are closed platforms without centralized marketplaces as well), software developed on open platform can have trouble gaining traction. The openness means there is a potential for much more competition which can lead to most releases being virtually invisible. This can be mitigated with beefy marketing budgets but those undermine the open nature of the marketplace. It doesn’t matter that I can develop for a platform without jumping through hoops if I then have to spend a million dollars to sell any copies of my application.

Ideologically, I much prefer the model of open software platforms for one key reason: all closed platforms to a greater or lesser degree leave developers wondering whether a piece of software to which they have devoted significant time, effort, and possibly money will, in fact, make it through the approval process so that it may be profitable. Open platforms give developers the peace of mind knowing that only the market will decide their success or failure. Closed platforms have distinct advantages, but the freedom offered to all parties by an open platform is a hard thing to sacrifice to any end.

iPhone review: Zen Bound

March 13th, 2009 • No comments

Zen BoundAs soon as you launch Zen Bound, you’re going to realize you’ve stumbled into something really special. True to it’s name, the game is really a zen experience. The feelings I get playing this game are very close to those I get playing Flower on the PS3. I’m sure it’s much easier to sell a game if you stick guns and blood into it, but bravo to brave developers willing to stretch the definition of gaming even if it makes the marketing a bit more labored.

zenbound-2Zen Bound allows the player to manipulate a wooden object by way of touch control. A rope is stretched from the screen to the object at an angle determined by the accelerometer. Players twist and turn the object to wrap the rope around it. The goal is to touch as much of the object with the rope as possible while soothing music plays in wonderfully separated stereo. There are two modes. As best I can tell, the difference is in the types of objects you are given to bind. The Tree of Reflection presents the player with a series of representative objects (usually animals carved from wood) while the Tree of Challenge contains more abstract and geometric shapes. As you bind the objects, they become “painted” a different color. The unpainted portions are those still left to touch.

Zen BoundIt sounds like a very simple concept but there is really a lot of strategy involved. I can’t just string my rope anywhere as I might bridge the rope over portions of the object that I will then be unable to touch later. Also, you are limited to a length of rope for each object forcing you to be economical with your use of it. Each stage has three flowers the can be attained. The first at 70% coverage, the second at 85%, and the third at 99%. It is possible to obtain all three at once by achieving 99% on your first completion of a level. Flowers accumulate to grant access to new stages higher up each tree. A level is completed by tying a second nail that begins glowing when you have reached the first completion level (70%). This adds another level of challenge as the level will end as soon as the rope makes contact with the nail after reaching at least 70%. If you want to achieve the second or third level of completion, you will have to avoid the second nail until you reach your desired coverage.

Zen BoundThe graphics are simple but beautiful. Granted, this isn’t a game with high polygon count models, but the models are beautiful and serve the purpose perfectly. The style of the art is complementary of the music. Everything feels relaxing and very… well, zen. The game opens with a text message which says that it is designed for use with headphones. Please take this to heart because the iPhone speaker does not do justice to the wonderful music in this game.

There are currently 6,000 games on the app store. Far less than 1% of those are entertaining. Less than 1% of those are unique. This game is in that 1% of 1%. I implore you to reward developers that think outside the box and toss out the tropes of gaming that have been established over the past 30 years. Zen Bound is an incredibly unique and rewarding experience that should appeal to nearly everyone.

Google Reader adds comments for sharing

March 12th, 2009 • No comments

Google sharing commentsThis is a big deal for social web addicts. One of the first articles posted to this site was about the inadequacies of Google Reader as a sharing platform when compared to FriendFeed. Yesterday, one of FriendFeed‘s advantages over Google’s sharing platform was mitigated as Google unveiled comments for shared items. Google Reader makes it easy to share stories with friends, but it hasn’t fostered conversation around shared content. The best you could do is to either e-mail the sharer or re-share the item with a note containing your own comments. This new feature is a real breakthrough, and it’s something I know for a fact I will use every day. Now, if Google will only copy Gmail’s new label management system right on over to Google Reader…

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