Skyrim Screenshot

Just a screenshot I took while playing Skyrim.  I really like the way the moon looks in it, and the foliage is nice to.  I'm surprised how nice the game looks and runs on my laptop.

Baldur's Gate Adventures Continue...Hunting Bandits for Fun and Profit

Smacking around a ghoul
along the coast

My party of adventures have sorted out what the problem was at the Nashkel Mines, and why all of the iron coming out of it was of such a poor quality. Turns out that there was evil afoot. Who knew! Anyway, with the completion of that jolly jaunt it's off to Chapter Three, and it looks like my new enemy is a bunch of bandits that have been causing all sorts of problems. The good news is that one of the local commanders of the Flaming Fist is offering 50 gold per bandit scalp that I bring to her, so it's off to kill bandits indiscriminately, and make off with their hairy bounty. It's all in the name of good, though, so it's okay. =)

These scalps have already proven surprisingly profitable. My party brought back enough to make a fast 1000 gold with minimal effort, and put the proceeds toward a nice, shiny Large Shield +1 for my main character. At least I'm assuming it's shiny, though it looks like there's some wood in there, so maybe not so much. With that, I reckon it's in my group's best interests to keep hunting those baddies down, and start raking in the moolah. With a little hard work we'll make out like bandits selling those scalps. (Ho! Ho!)

The Flaming Fist is paying top dollar for bandit
scalps

It can get a bit boring hunting down bandits all day, though, so to change things up a bit I've gone wandering around the wilderness just to see what there is to see, and what sort of trouble my party can get itself into. A lot of it has been just walking around thinking, "So man trees!" but there have also been some really fun encounters.

First there were the spiders. Glothrim and the gang (my character's name is Glothrim, by the way :p) were wandering along and would occasionally get attacked by very big spiders, which they were able to handle just fine (and get a nice amount of XP off of), with the occasional ettercap tossed in for variety. After cutting a path through the forest we encountered our first pack of tough enemies: a sword spider, a phase spider, and a wraith spider. I wasn't expecting them, so wound up getting attacked by all three at once. Being the heroic type, I sent my melees in to fight them, discovered the area is trapped, got everyone webbed, and wound up with even more very big spiders bearing down on my party. Yeah.

Black Talon Elite don't drop scalps
but they do carry high-end
arrows that you can loot

Thankfully I remember the most important tip one can have going into an Infinity Engine game: SAVE OFTEN! The caps aren't meant to be obnoxious. It's just that important. So, with death moments away as my party was overrun by big, bad creepy crawlies, I paused, and loaded a quick save from a few minutes earlier. With that I carefully (soooo carefully) made my way to that area once more, this time making sure to only pull one of those spiders at a time. Even then, they weren't easy to take down. The sword spider hits like a truck. A truck made of swords.  The wraith spider wasn't much better. Then there was the phase spider who was mostly just annoying. My group managed to kill them all, and I think Khalid even gained a level during the fights. So, yay!

After recovering, we headed toward the center of the map because I had a feeling there may be a structure there. The whole reason I took my party to this zone was because on the world map it looked like there was a quaint little cabin in the area, so I thought it would be nice if we popped our heads in and got to know the neighbors. Turns out it wasn't a cabin, and the people there weren't very nice. It was actually some old ruins being investigated by Red Wizards of Thay.

Wraith spiders give some decent experience for defeating them,
but make sure to isolate these monsters

I haven't read any of the Forgotten Realms books since high school, so I wasn't quite certain, but had a sneaking suspicion that these wizards may not be on the up and up. When we got too close their leader noticed, introduced himself briefly, and then informed us we had to die because we'd seen too much. He was surprisingly cordial about the whole thing. Now, I'm not a fan of wizards in this game because they can hit damn hard, and they always seem to like fearing a bunch of my guys, sending them running around like chickens with their heads cut off, making them pretty much useless for a while. So, having to fight a bunch of wizards at once wasn't the most titillating proposition. Sadly, it was unavoidable.

Denak is a bit of a jerk

What transpired next wasn't pretty, and I'm not sure that fancy pulls will win the day here. These guys have the usual array of spells that I've come to expect from magic users in Faerun: mirror images, magic missles, and horror (*sigh*), but they also seem to have additional frightening magical kaboomy stuff at their disposal. With that it wasn't long before my party was wiped out, and I was sifting through save files deciding which one to load. I opted to go do something else for a bit after that little episode.

So, now my party is along the coast, smacking ogres. I haven't had to be too terribly careful with my pulls here, but it's also important not to be careless. At any rate, it's not a bad place to farm up experience, and hopefully level everyone up a few times. Minsc is getting close, and I really want Dynaheir hitting level four as well. She starting to be kinda useful with her magic now.

It's also starting to feel like it may be time to resume the hunt for bandit scalps, and maybe even finishing off this chapter, so I may just get down to that soon. Anywho, I'm off to continue my adventures. Maybe I'll even go and punch a wizard in the face to help me feel better about myself, but not a Red Wizard of Thay, though. They're mean. Until next time! =D

Don't mess with the Red Wizards of Thay

Go For the Eyes, Boo!

There are no lack of things to fight in Faerun

With all of the recent talk about eternal projects, and doctors deciding that they don't want to make videogames anymore, I decided to blow the dust off of my old Infinity Engine games, and take them for a spin.  Well, two of them anyway: Icewind Dale and Baldur's Gate.  After a bit of back and forth, the decision was made that the latter of the two would be the one I'd stick with.  They're both great games, but Icewind Dale was a bit more combat heavy than I was looking for.  I wanted more conversations and exploration, and Baldur's Gate rounds out the experience a lot more between all of these gameplay elements.  And before I go on, I know a lot of people like the sequel better and will be all, "Just skip the first and go straight to the second.  It's sooooo much better!"  Well, quiet, you!  I like the first one, and plan to play it through to the end...or until my nostalgia itch is scratched, and I get distracted by something else.  Whichever comes first!

What replaying the game has reminded me more than anything else is just how much RPGs have changed in the last 10-15 years.  The games have gotten a lot easier, and the pace has been cranked up considerably.  Just with the game on the default difficulty I often have to work quite hard to win.  It may just be a small group of baddies, but if I go haphazardly running in swords swinging, my party will take a huge amount of damage, and people will die.  Well, maybe not so much when fighting kobolds or xvarts.  They're just a nuisance.  Against some ogres or hobgoblins or the like, especially when they may out level your party a bit, beware.  Tactics, and smart use of spells becomes the order of the day.  Have badly injured characters fall back to be healed, buff where you can, be prepared with the right spells, and most importantly don't be afraid to run away.

The more one explores the larger the world seems

It's really not like RPGs today where players are charging headlong into danger, cutting down everything in their path, and feeling like a badass after, with maybe the occasional boss fight that is sorta kinda tough.  In Baldur's Gate it really feels like the world is a dangerous place.  There are no lack of baddies out there that are ready, willing, and able to smash your party to pieces (especially when they're turned to stone).  It takes a lot more thought and skill to wade through this game than a lot of modern RPGs where it feels like players are being presented with 10-20 hours worth of monsters to smash in the face before hitting the ending credits.  It's actually really satisfying to be pushed this hard.

Then there's the whole pacing thing, as games of this period flowed a lot slower.  You could go for a nice stroll through town and have chats with countless NPCs while soaking in the local ambience. Even venturing into the wilderness, a fortress, caves, or whatever was a slower, more methodical experience.  Leveling is also a big thing in the game (as is getting new, more powerful weapons).  It's a few hours in before party members even begin to reach level two.  Heck, I'm still waiting for Dynaheir to hit level two on my current play through.  My point, though, is that leveling up means something in this game.  It's a very much needed boost to characters' stats and abilities, not just a steadily growing number that is so easy to take for granted in other games.  That level up could make all the difference between getting wiped out, or just barely making it past that one pack of monsters.

Hurray for the relative safety of
an inn!

Grumpy old guy talk aside, it's been fun poking my head back into Faerun.  There are so many likable characters here like Minsc, Khalid and Jaheira.  I usually stick to them Imoen, and Dynaheir when I play the first game, at least when I try and be a good guy (kinda tempted to do an evil player too).  The visuals are still a pleasure as well.  I'm sure some don't like the simplistic look of it, but I love the forests in the game.  The trees look so good to me.

But, yeah, just had to type out some thoughts on the state of RPGs then and now, and how much this game has reminded me just how the genre has changed over the last decade or so.

Reflecting on Bioware

Just the other day, Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka, founders of Bioware, announced that they were leaving the company.  This took a lot of people by surprise, and also helped to crank up the negative feelings that a lot gamers have toward EA, as well as the direction that Bioware has been going in recent years.  It's certainly the end of an era, but it got me thinking about what the company has meant to me over the years.

Like a lot of people, the game that got me interested in Bioware was Baldur's Gate.  It was my reintroduction to PC RPGs after a very lengthy hiatus, and I really loved that game.  It had the most tactically oriented combat that I'd ever experienced in a role-playing game up to that point, there were really interesting characters that would join you on your adventure (the world met Minsc for the first time!), and the game took place in the Forgotten Realms which was one of my favorite fantasy worlds growing up.  So yeah, Baldur's Gate was all kinds of awesome for me when it came out.

After playing the game, I made a point of keeping an eye out for whatever other games may come down the line from Bioware.  I grabbed Tales of the Sword Coast when it came out, I leaped at Baldur's Gate II and its expansion, and I even played MDK2 when it came out (yes, Bioware even made the occasional game with no RPG elements in it).  This process continued right up to the first Knights of the Old Republic, devouring whatever the company had to offer.

The Baldur's Gate series is one of my absolute favorite RPGs

It was only during this current console generation that my interest in what Bioware was putting out started to subside.  Mass Effect never really caught my eye.  I'm always up for a sci-fi RPG, and frankly there just aren't enough of them out there for my taste, but this game just wasn't something I felt compelled to run out and play from day one.  I eventually got it for $5 at a Steam sale, and played several hours of it, but to this day I can't stay interested in it enough to want to complete it.  A big part of this is that the game crashed on me once and I lost a ton of progress after which I just couldn't be bothered to play the game anymore.  In general, though, I just don't feel all that drawn to the Mass Effect series.  There isn't anything inherently wrong with the games, I'm just not interested in them.

I've even been slow to grab the Dragon Age games.  I actually like them quite a bit in no small part because the games' combat is much more similar to that of the old Infinity Engine games.  It's a lot more tactical.  Heck, I even enjoyed Dragon Age II, and I know a lot of people can't stand that game. I thought it was a fun ride, even if players had to spend a ton of time in one town.

Mass Effect is the first Bioware game that I couldn't get excitied about.
Will I ever like the series?  Who knows!

Nonetheless, I've not been waiting with bated breath for Bioware games in recent years, and I'm not entirely sure why that is.  Have I changed?  Has Bioware?  The answer to both those questions is, "Of course!"  I'm sure that for me it's just part of getting older.  I know full well that a game is still going to be available for sale six months down the line, so why rush to get it.  It's better to wait and get the thing at a discount.  Even if the game is being heavily hyped I don't find myself hopping on board with the same zeal that I once had.  I'm also sure that EA has had an impact on Bioware since gobbling the company up five years ago.  It would certainly explain the heavy shift to console development (though, admittedly, a lot of studios that were once PC-only went multi platform in a big way this generation).  It would also explain why a lot of Bioware's most recent efforts have felt a lot more homogenized, and like they were designed with a focus group in mind.

Dragon Age was a bit of a
return to Bioware's roots

The Bioware of today is a very different entity than it was five year ago.  Their games have become a lot glossier, but the meat on their bones doesn't feel as satisfying. A lot of games feel dumbed down, and Michael Bay-a-ma-fied, trying to appeal to the lowest common denominator. Dragon Age was a bit of a last hurray to the games that Bioware built itself up on, but even that doesn't compare to the Baldur's Gate series.

Backlash against the company has been building for a while.  There was that whole debacle regarding the ending of Mass Effect 3, a lot of people really disliked Dragon Age II, and it's safe to say that Star Wars: The Old Republic was a colossal failure. So, one has to wonder if these things played a part in Bioware's founders deciding to leave. Then again maybe they really are tired of making games, and want to walk away from it all. Whatever the case, they were the last line of defense between Bioware and EA.  With them gone, I suspect Electronic Arts will have even more direct control of the company. Sadly, when this has happened in the past it has led to the demise of countless once great studios like Bullfrog, Westwood, and Maxis. It wouldn't come as a surprise if Bioware found itself as the latest addition to this heap of carcasses sooner rather than later.

It Certainly Didn't Take an Eternity to Fund this Project

Through much of last week, Obsidian was teasing gamers that they had a new game that they were going to announce, and when the veil was finally lifted they took a lot of people by surprise; in a good way.  It turns out that they want to return to their roots and make an isometric tactical RPG for the PC, and they plan to forego traditional publishing routes to make it happen, instead opting to get the cash they need for development via Kickstarter.  Really, they haven't much choice in that regard because big publishers would never greenlight a project like that.  Anyway, it looks like there's a lot of people out there that would really like to get their hands on such a game, as the company got the $1.1 million that they were asking for in just over a day.

This is pretty darn mind blowing because, to the best of my recollection, no other project has got this much money this fast.  When Double Fine said they were going to make a fan-funded adventure game, they pulled in money at a decent clip, but certainly not at this pace.  I'm not even sure that the Ouya had this much support out of the gates.  So, it's certainly fair to say that there has been a lot of pent up demand for this kind of game for quite some time judging by the overwhelming support that it has received so far.

I'm definitely jazzed about the project, as games like Fallout, Planescape: Torment, and Icewind Dale are some of my favorite RPGs.  The combat is pretty great, and it's been years since we've seen it done this well.  The Dragon Age games sort of did it, but I still find the old Infinity Engine games a lot better for it, not to mention that they usually had a lot better storytelling, and a more interesting world to explore.

Planescape: Torment

There isn't a whole lot to go on yet as to what we can expect from the game.  We do know it'll be in a fantasy world with plenty of magic, and the big thing is the emphasis on this whole old school RPG experience.  It also sounds like Obsidian wants to explore far more mature themes than they'd otherwise be able to if they'd gone with a traditional publisher.  Often times when I hear developers say they want to do something like this I'm extremely skeptical because they talk big about this before the game comes out, and it turns out that the game's story isn't very mature at all outside of a liberal smattering of gory deaths and boobies.  However, given the people involved with this project (Chris Avellone, Tim Cain, and Josh Sawyer), and their RPG track record, this is one of the few games out there where I'm willing to believe that they will do good job of exploring mature themes in a game.  (The other company I trust for this sort of thing is CD Projekt)

Obsidian has already announced some of their stretch bonuses for the game now that they've hit their funding goal.  Some of the goodies that they plan to add, depending on how much money they can bring in, includes new playable races, classes, and companions, housing for your characters, as well as a Mac and Linux version of the game.  After that, who knows?  It would be cool to see a toolkit added for mods, though. =)

Icewind Dale

About the only concern I have for the game is that Obsidian has a bit of a reputation for putting out buggy products that need to get patched up after release.  Hopefully with this game they'll take their time, and make sure to avoid such problems.  I'd very much like to see the game succeed spectacularly because, bugs not withstanding, Obsidian, and before that Black Isle, have made some of my favorite RPGs ever.  They've also been screwed over pretty hard by big publishers in recent years, being forced to lay off staff because they didn't hit absurd Metacritc aggregate critic scores, so it would be great to see the company find a way to permanently remove their heads from the yoke of traditional game publishing. =)