The Blogtastic Blogfest That Is Getmeoutofthis.net!

Okay, let’s reach back on the ol’ list of blog ideas that I haven’t gotten around to writing yet.
Oh, okay, here’s an old one. Majesty.

Majesty is a series that one Matthew Essner really enjoys. I knew that, but I didn’t know much about it until I watched a quick look of the new one on Giant Bomb. The idea of not having direct control over your units, just how you spend money, seemed really appealing, so when I saw that there was a Majesty game on iOS for a buck, I figured I’d pick it up and give it a try.

First off, let me just say that the controls are not that great. They feel like someone shoehorning in normal PC controls on a touch screen. It’s very hard to set items down exactly where you want them, because you have to double tap on a grid that is actually very small. This can create problems when you’re trying to place important structures like defense towers. It also is near-impossible to set “Defend this” flags, which is kind of an issue, too.

The other thing that really confused me is that this isn’t a port! Apparently the levels in this are completely different than in the PC version, which is just… crazy. If they were going to make new levels, why not make controls that aren’t ass? I only found this out when I went looking for help on a level I got stuck on, and Essner told me that level simply isn’t in the game he played. How crazy is that, right?

Still, the basic concept is still cool. Instead of issuing orders to your adventurers, you post various bounties. “Explore here, get 100 gold.” “Kill this, get 200.” The more money, the more people will want to do it. When you pay the adventurers for doing this, they will spend the money in your shops buying a new enchanted sword, or some healing potions so they can take on harder jobs. It’s like you’re controlling the random sidequest board in an RPG, and I am down with that. There were certainly some points where I was like “Dammit, just kill that thing!” but most of the time I enjoyed the feel.

This version has problems, though. It apparently works on an iPhone, but I have no idea how shitty the game would play on that small of a screen. It’s a weird product, but I suppose if you enjoyed the original game, and had a buck, picking it up wouldn’t be a bad move to have some more of that action on the go. I know Essner was certainly interested when I showed it to him.

Today is the last day to use the milk in my refrigerator.

Today is also the day where I talk Saints Row The Third spoilers. Remember when I said that yesterday? I didn’t lie. If you want to play this game, and you damn well fucking SHOULD, you should not spoil yourself on it. So go away if that’s the case. Otherwise, feel free to read on.

—SPOILARZ BEGIN—

Fuck, that Saints Row the Third, eh? What in the game wasn’t amazing?
Seriously, though. I just have to point at a few things and go “Holy Shit!”

The mission where you are rescuing Zimos from the sex club was the first time I totally lost it. I am no stranger to this stuff, and when the manager mentioned “pony barn” I had a good idea where things were going. Still, the utter absurdity of the shootout on the Pony Carts, and the fact that they explode, just made me break out into laughter. I could barely shoot. I was involved in something so fucked up! It was beautiful. It was then that I knew I had made no mistakes about my love for this game.

The major setpieces of the game, where you’re destroying the rival gangs of the Luchadores and the Deckers, are equally fucked up, and I love them so much. When Matt started making my game lag in the Decker attack, and it really was exactly like a laggy FPS, I just couldn’t help but giggle. Similarly, every single bit of the showdown wrestling match with Killbane was just… perfect. It was ridiculous, and I loved it.

One little detail that kept showing up in the game that was so stupid, I had to love it, was my backpack. At some point, I bought this stupid bright pink kitty backpack and wore it. For whatever reason, whenever my character put on a costume, she’d still have the backpack on. I was wrestling with that thing! It just made the whole situation all the more ridiculous. It was perfect for the Boss’s character.

As far as the ending goes, I really have to say I like the “good guy” ending much better. I picked that one first, of course, because I am predictable, and everything about the Gangstas in Space mission was a joy. I was laughing. I can’t wait to play more of that, seeing as I threw down for the DLC. The other set of missions just… well, they were crazy, but they just lacked the humor. It was appropriate for the Saints to basically decide to have Steelport secede from the United States for no reason. That is dumb and also ridiculous. But just… a different kind of ridiculous. That one might be the more “true” ending for people who played the first two games, but I wasn’t a huge fan.

I think that’s about all I have to say. I am waiting desperately for the DLC. I felt like it was overpriced, but dammit, I want more of this game. So I bought it. I hope it lives up to the awesome titles.

I’m just going to talk about Saints Row: The Third, okay? Today? No spoilers. Tomorrow: spoilers, probably. I mean, we’ll see. I haven’t written it yet. Maybe I’ll have less to say than I think I will. But I also think that is unlikely.

Before Saints Row: The Third, I had only really clicked with one or two open world games before, such as Red Faction: Guerrilla. The adventures of the Space Asshole were fantastic. You always had something fun to do (read: blow up) and more fun was very rarely far away. What’s more, you always felt insanely powerful. It would take waves and waves of dudes to even attempt to kill you, and that was just so much fun. Crackdown was really the other game that clicked with me, and it was similar. Always something useful to do. From the near get-go, you felt invincible and powerful.

I guess it’s no surprise then, that since Saints Row: The Third has such upgrade tree options as “Don’t Take Damage From Bullets” that I would enjoy it. From the get-go, the game makes it clear that you are powerful, obscenely so, and that nothing can stop you. Sure, if you weren’t playing on easy like I was, you might die sometimes. There were moments where I got killed, even on easy. But most of the time, nothing can touch you. You eventually fight a whole fucking army, and nothing can stop you. It’s amazing, and it’s so, so much fun.

On top of all that, all of the dialog in the game is fantastic. It’s funny, but most importantly, it’s smart and extremely well-delivered. This is a game with auto repair shops are called “Rim Jobs,” but somehow the characters in it seem extremely real, and have fantastic chemistry with your player character, which is just mind-blowing considering there are, what, 7 different options for voices? It never felt like my character’s voice was pasted in. It felt like the whole game was made around her. It’s fantastic that way. I mean, okay, I said no spoilers, but here’s something near the beginning of the game that just shows how amazing this voice work is. So good.

Plus, the game has a “buy up property which gives you money that you can use to buy more property” mechanic, which I am always a total sucker for and love.

All these elements, plus a completely batshit insane story, adds up to what I feel I can pretty safely say is the best gaming experience I have had this year. Every moment of this game was a joy to play through. Sure, there were some mission types I wasn’t a fan of, but the game really doesn’t penalize you for not doing those. You really can play your way, and the game is constantly giving you new tools to skip the parts of the game you don’t like. It rewards you for doing well by letting you remove what you don’t like, and continues to reward you for doing what you do like. It is a video game, not high art, but oh, what a video game it is.

Go play this game. Seriously. Don’t read the spoilers tomorrow, just play the damn game. You won’t be disappointed.

This evening, I got a chance to play with Hinterlands, the new Dominion expansion. There are a lot of those now! And my brother’s father-in-law loves the crap out of them. He brought the new set to Thanksgiving, so of course we had to throw down a little.

It had been a long time since I played Dominion. It was a ground-breaking game, but in a lot of ways, I’ve kind of moved past it at this point. It’s very simplistic, even with a lot of the expansions in play. That’s both a good and a bad thing, I suppose. Still, it is still an enjoyable gaming experience.

Hinterlands seemed to revolve around mechanics that made you discard a lot of cards, as well as cards that have an effect when you buy them. For example, when you buy Mandarin, you get to pick up all the treasure you played that turn and plop it on top of your deck. As far as discarding goes, you have simple cards with discard mechanics, like Oasis, which is +1 Card, +1 Action, Discard a Card, +1 Treasure. There was even a crazy victory point card called Tunnel, which let you take a Gold card every time you discarded that card in particular.

By far, my favorite card, though, was Fool’s Gold. It was a treasure that was only worth one… unless you play more than one copy a turn, where every copy other than the first one is worth four instead. I bought many of them and used them to great effect. I also enjoyed Oracle, which let you look at the top 2 cards of everyone’s deck, and decide whether you should put them into their discard pile or not, then draw two cards. I had a lot of fun with that one.

I didn’t eek out a victory, but it was a fun time. Dominion still has it! I’m not sure who besides Steve would still be buying expansions for it, but it is still a fun game that’s quick to play. Hinterlands certainly seems like a better expansion than, say, Alchemy, which kind of sucked. Although Dominion is not really the focus of my play time anymore, I’m never going to turn down giving it a go, so it was interesting to see what they’re still doing with the game.

My mother bought an Xbox. She wanted to play trivia with my dad, okay? So she bought an Xbox. That happened. I am going to do what I can to help her do just that. Because I am a good daughter! Even if she still wouldn’t call me that.

But that Xbox came with a Kinect. So when I set it all up for her, I also set up the Kinect, and we tried out Kinect Adventures.
That sure is a Kinect demo sort of game thing!

First off, my parents’ living room is really well set up for Kinect, actually, now that the TV is on the wall. It could see us perfect, and we had plenty of room for stupid flailing about, so that’s nice. The voice controls also work really well, which is totally cool! It’s a pretty neat feature. Still, we had a really good setup, and Kinect often had little problems picking us up. Especially stepping forward and backward! Leg stuff. That was hard for it.

Kinect Adventures, though, was really just a demo reel, but it was entertaining. The series of the minigames seemed to impress my parents, and I had fun enough playing them. They were also entertained by the photographs after every game. I was less so, but was glad to find that yes, I really can look at myself now without cringing. It’s nice! Though I still think the picture-taking is kind of dumb.

The best game, by far, was the one where you’re on the little platform and have to dodge the stuff in a little race with player two. Not only was actually attempting to play that game an actual workout, but it was action-packed, fun, and used the Kinect really well in a way that didn’t make the flaws obvious. Even then, though, it still couldn’t read side-stepping very well, and since you needed to do that to win… well…

Fun was had, but the problems were obvious. There is and always will be novelty in jumping around like a madman and seeing that reflected on screen, but… yeah. Without something nice overlayed with purpose, I just… I don’t need one of those! But it’ll be fun to mess around with it with my parents, I guess.

I do still want to play Dance Central, though. Yes I do.

Adam Jensen is a murderer.
There, I said it. He’s a complete sociopath asshole. I loved every minute of playing as him. People would accuse of him being just that, and I would just nod my head, and then shoot them. Yep.

Deus Ex: Human Revolution is an amazing game. It’s flawed in a lot of ways. For example, the hiding and shooting controls on consoles are kind of fucked up! Not so much that you can’t get used to them, but they’re really weird. There are plenty of other little things like that, such as not being able to defeat bosses without murdering them. That particular problem, however, was not a big deal for my Adam Jensen, because he murdered EVERYONE.

It took a few hours of playing before I realized that I was playing a “bad” character for the first time in my entire RPG life. It wasn’t that I wasn’t helping people, or telling people to fuck off. I wasn’t doing that. But in a game with so many non-lethal options, I went out of my way to kill everyone, even when it was not necessary. I would get caught breaking into a house to rob it, and I would murder all the police within a several block radius, and just step over their bodies for the rest of the game like it was nothing. I refused to give a character a weapon so he could survive because I required ALL THE GUNS in order to kill EVERYONE IN THE BUILDING. This was my Adam Jensen. Innocent or not, if you were in any way in my way, you were dying.

Once I realized this, I had fun playing up that persona. I broke into every single office at my place of business and stole everything, even though I was supposed to be the person in charge of making all that happen. I won the completely awesome “social battles,” of course, but I was no longer doing it because I was impassioned or anything. I was doing it purely to manipulate and get what I wanted. In one particular conversation, I bluffed my way into getting information from a guy, and then right after the conversation ended, pulled out a shotgun and shot him in the face. I was doing things in a game I hadn’t done before. It was kind of fantastic and fresh. I am always a goodie-two-shoes, but something about this game really made playing a guy like that, even if just in my head, incredibly fun. Knowing I had so many options, but chose to kill anyway, made it so. Often I’d find the way to sneak by, and then I’d just turn around, slide out of the vent, and start firing randomly until I aggroed everyone. That’s just how my Jensen rolls.

The game really assumes you want to not murder everyone, though. All the dialog in all the various pick-an-endings all involve Jensen saying that he tried to be responsible with his newfound power, which my Jensen TOTALLY DID NOT. I also found a certain mission I went on where I was chosen because I had proven I had the “skills” to get the job done, and then was asked not to kill anyone, really funny. Clearly I didn’t have any skills on NOT killing people. I did complete that mission, but I made sure to knock out all the guys and leave them sleeping face down in a pool of water, because drowning is a “non-lethal takedown,” right?

Even without being a dick, Deus Ex: Human Resources is a fantastic game that you should play if you give a shit at all about RPGs. Again, there are little things that will annoy, but the game often gives you multiple options on how to solve any crisis. You can shoot everyone, like I did, but there are many other ways to go about it too, which is just fantastic. I hope the game gets a good sequel that irons out the bugs. I will play the shit out of that, too.

A friend of mine has started up an Ironclaw campaign that he wants me in on. I’d love to, though my schedule is shitty! He’s working things out to have me there, though, so I am ALL IN. Or something like that.

The system seems fine enough, as far as RPGs go. The rolling doesn’t seem too stupid, which is always a plus. What really caught my imagination, though, was some of the potential careers for player characters. I could make a Functionary, who is basically a bureaucrat in charge of running a household or business. So my special powers would be involved in being literate and knowing math. This appealed to me. Like, for serious. How ridiculous for someone like that to be in an adventuring party! How completely awesome for that to be the case! Of course I made one immediately, drawing up an interesting deer lady good at math and business and talking.

Tonight, my friend asked me to help him with some more background for my character. My character has the noble blood perk, and he just kind of asked me a simple question: what noble house did I belong to?
I, of course, had no answer, because the way I build characters is just… well, it’s very me.

In general, I create a character, by which I mean I start fitting together a list of rules and feelings this character has in order to be able to make decisions. This is “character building” to me, and even as I was filling out stats in this game, that’s what I was doing. Coming up with this person’s values and ideals. I would then, normally, just let this character loose, let them bump up against stereotypes and eventually non-stereotypes to build up how they react and who they are. They tell me by making decisions. This also ends up building the world, because they tell me what’s going on in the world and why things are important to them. They bring the world into reality.

This is why I rarely work in established universes like the one in Ironclaw. Because I don’t have simple answers to simple things when the character is made. Those are created as I go along, organically. Sure, in editing I make it all work out better, but I just feel like this makes more… real people, you know? I get the person to the state where I can talk to them and have a conversation with them before I do things like decide who their mother is and so on and so forth.

I know this isn’t the only way to do it. Armadox (the previously-mentioned friend) walked me through some stuff in the universe and we came up with some in-world answers to these simple questions that set up more potential interesting character interactions, which I’m all for. He also put up with me as I made sure these in-world things didn’t interfere with the voice I had built in my head for the character, which must have been frustrating, but we got it done. Certainly, sometimes I wish I could make characters like that, where everything just fits in like a glove. As handy as it would be, though, it really isn’t me. I can fake it, but I don’t put enough heart into it.

This, though, we worked out in an awesome way, and I am excited to run the character on Sunday. I am going to math the shit out of things.

There is but one universal truth in the world.
Orcs Must Die.
Apparently.

Because I am like the only person not sick to death of Tower Defense games and their spin-offs, I watched the Quick Look for Orcs Must Die and was really intrigued. It looked extremely fast-paced, like fun arcade times! So I splurged on it, like I sometimes do on things. I’m not all the way through it. I’ve played a few levels here and there as I go along. I think there are 6 left? But I have really enjoyed the game.

Basically, you set up traps, such as spike floors and walls that shoot arrows, to kill orcs, which flood out of various doors on the map and try to get to some crystal or something that you’re trying to protect. You have a little sword thing and a fucking machine gun crossbow to attack orcs as well, and your own attacks are at least as important as the towers themselves. In fact, after you reach a certain point in the game, you can “spec” yourself for traps or for attacking yourself for each level in order to be more effective at whatever is going to be more effective on that stage, which lets you switch it up a bit.

The main character you run around as has a lot of character to him. The things he says are kind of stupid, but the way he’s animated is nice, so as I played while listening to podcasts and not the game audio, I rather liked his quick swagger sprinting about the level. The orcs, as well, are really well animated. They seem dangerous, but clumsy and stupid, and their fairly gore-ful death animations never cease to be entertaining as you play, which is a plus, since you may kill a lot of them. Their attack patterns are also interesting for games like this, as if you are even vaguely close to them, they will fucking mob and kill you instead of just running mindlessly for the goal, which makes you have to think a bit more on your feet when you’re just charging in.

The game is constantly giving you new traps and new magical items that let you cast various spells. I’ve gotten a lot of use out of the Wind Belt, for example, that lets me summon a blast of wind that blows enemies backwards, letting me push them back into traps to get hit a second time. I’ve also taken to the Flame Bracelet, which lets me throw AoE Fireballs into crowds and set them on fire, doing a short DoT. Many of them are very situational and you may never use them outside of the level you first get them, but there’s always something new to try if you want it, and the game rarely does something dickish to cut you off from favorite strategies completely. It’s also very difficult as the levels go forward. About halfway through, I flipped it to easy because it was getting super hard! There’s plenty of challenge if you want it.

I was happy to have spent my $15 bucks. Orcs Must Die may not be worth that to everyone, but at least give it a look when it goes on Steam Sale this holiday, as I assume it’ll be much cheaper than that. It is a very fun diversion and podcast game.

Essner came over today. He saw my new house, and then we played some Guardian Heroes.

Guardian Heroes is an insane game where it is impossible to ever understand what is going on at any point in time. Tracking your character on three planes in the midst of explosions and whatnot is incredibly difficult! Especially when the game requires SERIOUS TIMING to be played well. The various fighting mechanics were also a bit weird and hard to understand, but that’s probably because I just jumped in and didn’t know anything.

Seriously, though, this game is tough. We played on Normal and we got like nowhere in the game. Nowhere at all. And this was in the easier “Remix” mode. Is this seriously what this game was all about? It is so popular and has so much praise, but it is just so confusing for a brawler, what is supposed to be the most easiest of game types. We flipped it to Easy and had a much more fun time from then on out and, to the fair, the game doesn’t restrict you from getting any of the achievements but the “beat it on hard” achievement while playing on easy, so clearly they expected this sort of turn of events.

Really, the game reminds me of, of all things, Guilty Gear Isuka. In that game, you had to do ridiculous shit like juggle two levels of gameplay and make sure your character was facing the right direction to block. It was overly complex for no real reason, in a game that was already sort of complex. Guardian Heroes really feels that way to me. Once you figure out how to kill dudes, you can kill them, but there are so many systems that are just a mystery. Do your stats really affect you much? I couldn’t see how while we were playing. It just… yeah.

The branching paths of the ridiculous nonsense story were appreciated. All the art is definitely of an era that is not now! It almost annoys me to that extent.

Really, though, what we ended up doing was playing online matches of their Versus mode. This was hilarious. It’s like a fighting game, but there are a million characters, and there are like a minimum of 12 people playing at a time. If you think the normal game is hard to follow, the Versus mode is a thousand times worse. It is completely impossible to keep track of yourself, and there’s no good way to know what characters, besides the main four you play in the normal mode, will do. I picked a Civilian Child for one match, and all I could do is walk back and forth slowly, and jump forward. I kind of lost my shit at that. It was so stupid. I was just this little sprite, walking around, while everyone else was throwing magic and crap left and right. It was so insane.

I really don’t get it. I don’t get how this game is the classic everyone has always said it was. I don’t get it! Maybe someone will tell me how wrong I am. That’d be fine. But I was not impressed at all. Nope.

Let’s see what’s on the list of unused blog ideas… Doom II RPG, huh?

I really loved Wolfenstein RPG. Like, a ton. It was a lot of fun, and surprisingly strategic in its combat. Thus, when I saw that Doom II RPG was a thing, and it was on sale, of course I was there. I’d like more of that, please.

In a lot of ways, Doom II RPG is much more robust than Wolfenstein RPG, but it just doesn’t feel as fun to me. Is it because I’ve already played it? I don’t think so. It just feels less inspired.

Unlike Wolfenstein, you get to pick between three dudes this time. “Sarge,” who is more appropriately known as Doomguy, a lady, and a scientist. They all have different stats, so that’s different. I went with the lady because she is a lady. I didn’t really feel like my choice affected the game much. Maybe I had less HP? I’m not sure. The game also tries to throw a lot of more “interesting” weapons at you. For example, you early on get a Sentry Bot which you can send out and control separately from you and shoot guys with. However, it’s just not practical to use that stuff often, for reasons I am about to explain.

One of the weapons you get pretty early is a Holy Water Pistol. This refills at any sink or toilet. You can drink from it to heal yourself, or shoot enemies with it. It hurts demons, and inflicts a fear effect. Now, think about this: all enemies in Doom, except the basic zombie guys, are demons. This weapon clears rooms, keeps you safe, and you always have ammo for it. It just kind of breaks things wide open. Until you get to a boss, where it just doesn’t work, and you realize that without it, you really have shit for weapons! This weapon makes normal combat trivial, but then the bosses become a huge leap in difficulty. It’s just strange.

Similarly, all these stats are strange. You didn’t really have much in the way of player-changed stats in Wolfenstein, but in this game, you’re doing things like a dumb treadmill mini game to up your speed stat. The game wants you to grind, and the benefits for gaining one point are kind of minimal, as far as I could tell. I’m not going to sit there and grind until enemies don’t get two turns to my one or whatever. Not going to do it.

Yeah, I dunno. I would suggest you getting Wolfenstein over this one. They’re both very similar, in general, but I just felt like I found a lot of flaws with this “expanded” version. Maybe I’m just stupid though. I don’t know.