A Very Special Notice

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You may notice that there as no message after the dots. You may have also noticed that this is a notice, not an actual blog update. Well let me explain why...

Video games are one of the things I am most passionate about in the entire universe. I am also very passionate about helping those in need. Some people who need help the most are children with life-threatening diseases. In 2008 the Sarcastic Gamer Community started Extra Life to help raise money for children with life threatening illnesses. You can read the whole story and find out more about Extra Life at the website link below, but to sum it up, Extra Life is a 24 hour marathon where we have a blast playing games, while helping children around the world when they need it most.

This is a very important event to me, so I want everyone reading this to pitch in in one of three ways:

#1. Once my fundraising page is up, donate as much as you can spare to the cause. I'll take pennies if you've got 'em.
#2. Become a participant yourself, I could use the company on the Marshmellow Fluff Team!
#3. Spread the word to EVERYONE you know. Even your pets!

If you want to donate, head to my page here: http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.participant&eventID=501&participantID=4394. If you want to play go here: http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=cms.home and sign-up and select the hospital closest to you (or which ever one you want to have your money go to if you have one in mind outside of your area.)

The day to play is October 15th, so there's plenty of time, but the sooner the word is out, the more we can do to contribute to this worthwhile cause. As I said, this is a very important event to me, and every thing you guys do to help will mean the world to me, and to these kids who really need the support.

Together, we can make a big difference. So let's do just that.

Nolan.

P.S. Oh you can also check out my team and donate to the others participating with me here http://www.extra-life.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=donorDrive.team&eventID=501&teamID=5029

I Never Want To Go Back To Kirkwall

...a nice place to visit once or twice though.

*BEWARE! HERE BE (MINOR) SPOILERS!*

Anyone who knows me as a gamer even sort of well knows I love two things: Great stories, and Bioware.

Bioware is my favourite company. I try not to let it tip my opinion of their games, but it probably does. However, can you really blame me? Knights of the Old Republic, Baulders Gate II, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect. Bioware has spoiled us with some of the best RPG's not just of the last decade, but some are among the all-time great RPG games.

Most developers would kill for their track record...

You may have noticed I left one game in particular off that list. Dragon Age: Origins is also a great RPG. Maybe not the best Bioware has ever made, but as a spiritual successor to the Baulders Gate games Dragon Age is pretty good. The world is fascinating, the characters are deep and have a wide range of motives and personalities, and the story provided an interesting spin on the "save the world" plot.

And then Hawke and Dragon Age II came along...

Dragon Age II improves on a few areas over Origins, so to help you see why I am so conflicted by this game we'll look at what Dragon Age II did better over Origins.

First, the characters are actually more interesting to me in Dragon Age II than those who appear in Origins. Now don't get me wrong, I still love the characters from Origins, especially some of the fan favourites like Zevran, but overall I felt the characters this time around had more depth to them and had better acting behind them. Merril and Varrick are particular standouts. Dragon Age II also sports a much better combat and leveling system. I liked the combat involving you to actually mash buttons to keep your attack going (you could turn this off and go back to the automatic "point and click" style that was in Origins if your preferred it though) , and the skill trees and options you had when leveling were much better than Origins. Dragon Age II also sports some much better graphics than it's predecessor.

So with all these things that Dragon Age II has going for it, what makes it so much worse than Origins? Two very simple reasons really...

#1. You can NOT set an RPG in one small town.

There are a lot of stairs in Kirkwall.

Kirkwall is a pretty interesting place. When I first reached the city and got to actually explore around, I found it very different from any place I had really seen in Origins, and I enjoyed my time in it for a while. But by the end of the game I had seen the same exact places a hundred times. Even the few exterior locations outside the city stayed the same. This game takes place over the course of a ten year period. Change SOMETHING for crying out loud! Set each part in a different season, blow a section of town up and introduce a new one, but don't just copy paste the same places throughout the whole course of the game! I understand the story is about the main characters rise to prominence in this one particular place but that doesn't mean you can't go anywhere else. Oh, and that segways into number 2....

#2. You can not have the story START in the "third act."

If you played Dragon Age II you know exactly what I'm talking about. Everything Hawke does until the third act plays more like a collection of short stories with hints of of an overarching plot that will boil over at some point than of one story with the same plot. There is no real enemy or antagonist at any point in the game until about the last three hours or so. The Arashok doesn't really count in my mind as his problems are not revealed until about midway through, and it gets resolved almost as quickly. It;s not until the last section of the game when the "real" plot and antagonist show themselves, and it's over within a few hours of their emergence. The game just felt rushed and disjointed in this aspect. Almost like EA just wanted a quick cash grab sequ...oh. The ending to Dragon Age II does imply something bigger is going on, and given what is already occurring at the end of the game, that's certainly a story I want to have told.

Ever feel like you've been here before?

That said, Dragon Age II might be Bioware's worst game. Don't misunderstand me, I still love plenty about the game that I will probably play it plenty in the future. But Bioware can not let this happen with Dragon Age III. They need to take their time with the third one, and make sure that it is much stronger in story and setting than Dragon Age II. Dragon Age has a great world to set games in, and there are plenty of places that fans of the games would like to visit, and there are certainly lots of stories that could be told in the universe, and it would be a shame if Dragon Age II ruins any real chance at having that happen.

Next time I'll be posting up a series of smaller thoughts and stories, so nothing like what I've been doing so far.

See you folks next time!

The Music Genre and Why It Died (and Why It Was Unavoidable)

...For those about to rock.

Maybe this is a bit late, but lately I've been thinking a lot about whether I should let Rock Band and Rock Band 2 stay in my games library or if they should be traded in/sold. I invested a lot of time and money into them after all, and I still enjoy playing them from time to time.

Of course, the last time I even picked up my plastic Fender Stratacaster was about six or seven months ago.

So before we start blaming Red Octane and Activision for souring the music game genre with it's dozen or so Guitar Hero games released over the past three years, we need to think a little bit about why this genre was so beloved in the first place.

When Guitar Hero first appeared in 2005 it was something we in the west had never seen before. Playing some of our favourite songs ever with a plastic guitar controller allowed us to at least pretend we were rocking out to millions of people. It was one of those games that was fun to play with friends, and those who were good at it took pride in their scores and their skills at the game. Konami's GuitarFreaks game had already done something along the lines of this. But for most of us, it was fresh and new. Not to mention insanely addicting and incredibly fun.

Then in 2007 we saw the next step. Rock Band introduced us to having a full band to play with in these games. It was an even deeper experience, and brought something incredibly different to the genre. Rock Band also brought something else to the table: downloadable songs. Now, not only did we have a full band experience, but now, through Harmonix, we could buy hundreds of different songs and albums to play, added onto the eighty or so that shipped with the game.

A token price of about $180 got you all this

At this point in time the idea of games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero were still somewhat fresh and interesting. Unfortunately this is also about the time when we started getting things like Guitar Hero: Van Halen.

Don't get me wrong some of these titles weren't horrendous, but there is certainly too much of a good thing, and Red Octane and Activision didn't seem to understand this very well. In fact, the sheer number of games they put out may be part of the reason why Rock Band: The Beatles wasn't as big as it should have been. The Beatles edition of Rock Band was more than just a paintjob over Rock Band's already existing frame, it really felt like a different game in the music games genre.

In a way, Rock Band: The Beatles was the last gasp of air for the genre. Neither Rock Band 3 or Guitar Hero: Warriors of Rock sold very well, despite the new keyboard in RB3 that really seemed like it could bring even more people over. DJ Hero was an interesting...spin...on the idea, but never really gained traction. It goes beyond that though. I used to see plenty of people playing Rock Band and Guitar Hero within a given week. Now when I see someone playing them I go "Oh wow! Someone's playing Rock Band!" People are not just refusing to buy new games, they don't play the ones they have to begin with anymore.

Like I said in the opening, the over-saturation of the genre certainly contributed to the end of the genre as we know it, but it's not the reason for it.

Ever remember a game series called Dance Dance Revolution? Remember how it used to be all the craze? My school even implemented it into our gym class at one point (I was in like sixth grade when they did this by the way). IT was that one game that was always around at parties, and everyone knew what it was.

Ever really see anyone playing it now?

Nope.

Now, granted, we have games like Just Dance that kind of take the experience to another level now, but think about it, when was the last time you got that arrow-mat out and played some good old DDR? I'll bet that most of you haven't done so in at least a year or two, if not more. There's a really simple, yet sad reason for it.

Because the novelty simply wore off.

Games like Rock Band and Dance Dance Revolution are doomed , in a way, from inception, because they rely on introducing people to an idea that is, initially, incredibly different, but overtime can not really change much. Eventually you look at your several Guitar Hero titles and think "Do I really need another one?" Guitar Hero attempted to do something with a story element, and introduced some pretty cool ideas in Warriors of Rock, but when you boil it down, your still jamming away on a plastic guitar while notes flash by. The gameplay can't ever change much beyond that.

Thats not to say that Rock Band and Guitar Hero will never ever be respected again, but the fact of the matter is, they were never going to have staying power. They were, much like Dance Dance Revolution, a fad.

Now to other things I want to sum up briefly here.

First up, Peter Molyneux is now saying that the demo we saw at E3 of Fable: The Journey was not indicative of the rest of the game, making it a point to make sure we understand that the game is not an on-rails shooter. Lionhead Studios is going to really have to work hard to get people interested again, because a lot of people were very disappointed by the reveal demo.

Second, cheers to everyone who's reading and spreading the word. Makes me feel special inside.

That does it for now. Keep reading, keep spreading the word.

Vaas: The Best Video Game Character Ever?

...Sorry Freeman, your out.

E3 has been, as usual, a flurry of activity. The barrage of information is oftentimes a bit overwhelming and sometimes people miss the best reveals or previews. I know I'm still sifting through a mountain of interviews, trailers, and reveals. Despite this I thought for sure I was going to be most impressed by various titles like Mass Effect 3, and Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. However a bit later in the afternoon, I was browsing around, chatting with my friend Jimmy when I stumbled upon the Far Cry 3 gameplay demo. The gameplay was cool, the graphics were pretty solid, those things didn't blow me away per say, so much as they just looked really cool.

The voice acting and animation on the main villain Vaas on the other hand left me speechless.

"Have I ever told you...the definition...of insanity?" 

First off look at this guy. He LOOKS like an insane psychopath. Look at his eyes. You can see the fire and insanity in those eyes. His movement is also amazingly detailed...and slightly unpredictable. One moment, he's having a somewhat calm, albeit, disturbing, conversation with you, the next he suddenly blurts out, "...I am sorry....I don't LIKE....the way your looking at ME!" and then proceeds to go a little crazy, flipping over a makeshift table. He calms down for a minute walks over to the cement block your tied to, and shoves it off the cliff your next to. Which brings me to the voice acting. I am desperately looking to find out how gave Vaas' voice performance because whoever it is gave one of the best performances I have ever seen. Some people (not me... specifically anyway...) are comparing it to the kind of performance Heath Ledger gave in The Dark Knight. That's not blowing it out of proportion, that's how good it really was. And this is just the first ten or so minutes.

Think about that for a second. A lot of people are already blown away by Vaas and we've seen just one micro-fragment of the game. If the developers over at  Ubisoft Montreal pull this off right, and make Vaas' story and character development unique and/or interesting, he might become one of the best fictional characters ever. Obviously we still have a ways to go before Far Cry 3 is released, and in that time we'll see plenty of more gameplay videos, and learn lots of new information to be sure, but thanks to Vaas, I can't wait to see more, because I can't wait to see if the other characters can match up to his performance. 

Since this is a bit shorter than I want it to be, I'll wrap it up with the ten things I learned at this years E3...

10.) Nintendo's Wii-U is essentially a gigantic Nintendo DS.

9.) Star Wars Kinect is going to be the worst Star Wars game in a long time. Maybe even ever.

8.) Microsoft didn't care that Bungie "Finished the Fight."

7.) I never want to be the first person on stage at E3's press conferences.

6.) Peter Molyneux will need all the optimisim he has to get through his current Journey.

5.) Sony is still intent on getting into the handheld market. 

4.) Microsoft intends to make Cable obsolete.

3.) Nintendo might finally be trying to get M rated gamers interested in their consoles.

2.) Elder Scrolls Dragons are going to be the best creatures in a game ever.

1.) Microsoft still can't keep secrets.

That's all folks so until next time...

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