• All 5 character classes – Barbarian, Witch Doctor, Wizard, Monk, Demon Hunter
• Tristram Cathedral – Everyone remembers Skeleton King Leoric right? I think he even made an appearance in DotA.
• Followers – Only some of them, but still helpful if you have no friends.
• Randomization – They listed this as a feature, but I suspect it’d be harder NOT to randomize just for the Beta.
• Items – Gems, Charms, and Runestones included.

I’ve been going crazy over every released preview of this game, so if you haven’t looked at gameplay trailers, check them out. In addition, Blizzard shed some light on the new Auction House that would be available in the third iteration:

• Just what it sounds like – Kind of works like the one in World of Warcraft.
• Search functionality – Sorting by multiple columns and the ability to search for multiple characters on the same account. Both of these features sound awesome.
• Pay with or make cold, hard cash – You can also pay or sell for real money. There is a transaction fee involved for the seller, but they can have the proceeds directly deposited into a “third-party payment service”.
• The Old Fashioned Way – You can still do direct character to character transfers. The way me and my friends did it: Drop mountains of stuff into piles and let an unspecified deity sort it out.
• Blizzard is not evil – Blizzard isn’t going to mess with supply and demand. This will be a player-driven economy.
• Sell from your account – That means you can sell from any of your characters on the same account or from the shared stash without having to log out, which is annoying and also affords you an opportunity to stop playing the game.

Personally, I won’t be paying real life money for items, but the Auction House sounds like a much better way to get a Stone of Jordan. And since both the real and fake money Auction Houses are completely optional, I can even forget the Auction House exists and play it like Diablo II, which is still an awesome thing. Now for the hardest decision of all: Which class should I play first?

The gameplay is really simple: Try to get a certain number or combination of food items on a square-based board without running into the monsters or letting the monsters eat too many of the food items. The game is turn based, and for every step you take, the monsters move in the exact opposite direction. That’s all the mechanics of the game, aside from the special items you can get that throw some twists into the mix. For example, there are chili peppers that can eliminate a monster, or a watch that lets you take an extra turn. Though these seem beneficial at first, the special items actually add difficulty to the puzzle as a move in the wrong direction, even if it’s a free move, can mean you end up in an unsolvable state.

Leggo my apples!

Add the fact that there is a perfect score you can obtain in each stage – and there are 100 stages – and puzzle perfectionists should be occupied for hours. Admittedly, the game was too easy at first. I had a perfect score in 100% of the earlier levels, but as special items are introduced, it became much harder to keep track of everything on the board and I had to give up on getting the perfect score for every level. Luckily, the game lends itself to trial and error if you do get stuck, and Turbo mode is a convenient feature to help the play move along a little faster.

What’s even better about Munchies is that “the story of Munchies’ Lunch was inspired by a real family’s journey from their home caught up in civil war. Even though the game is about collecting fruit for the Munchie kids and avoiding monsters, ultimately it’s about love.”  Whose real life story is this? None other than Footloose Games’ President, Vlado Jokic. His family escaped the civil war in Yugoslavia and eventually inspired this game. The short vignettes in between the levels illustrate a journey in which the father always somehow manages to get captured or separated, leaving the brave mother to face monsters in order to obtain food for her children. Though the art style and animation are done in a cartoony fashion, something about the expressions and art direction added a hint of darkness and seriousness to the whole thing. It wasn’t exactly what kept me playing, but I certainly did want to see more of the story and wished it had even more cutscenes.

The sound and musical score in the game is well done and fairly catchy, as expected from games in this genre. The art and animation, though good, doesn’t quite live up to games like Critter Crunch, but you certainly won’t be complaining either. If monsters are threatening you from two squares away, they will be menacing, and when the monsters eat a jalapeno pepper, they will get burnt in an amusing fashion.

The journey takes the family through a variety of environments.

Perhaps the most (and only) disappointing thing about Munchies is that it’s not on a mobile platform. The game seems to be primed for it with its turn based style and the ease and speed with which a player can hop in and finish a few puzzles at any time. Footloose tells us they are in the midst of porting it for Mac and iPad, so hopefully portable ports won’t be far behind!

Munchies’ Lunch may not be a Triple A blockbuster hit, but it certainly shows that good game design can come in small packages.

Video games based on movies often times get a bad rap.  They tend to be nothing more than a cash grab that release alongside its movie counterpart and are marked at full price, making them very difficult to swallow.  There have been exceptions of course, such as Toy Story 3: the Game and Peter Jackson’s King Kong.  But what about games based on movies that are more than a decade old?  TellTale Games, creators of the Sam and Max series, challenges the negative stigma attached to movie based games with Back to the Future: the Game.

If you’ve ever played a TellTale title before, you know that they are big fans of episodic content.  What this means is that instead of buying the game and playing through it all in one go, they break it down into smaller pieces.  For example, I paid $25 for Back to the Future: the Game on Steam, and I am given access to all of the episodes as they are released.  Episode 3 is the latest instalment that you can play through, and it’s imperative that you start right from the beginning with Episode 1 to get the full enjoyment out of the game.  This review is for Episode 2: Get Tannen! specifically.

Since Back to the Future: the Game is an adventure story-based game (much like the adventure games of yesteryear, such as King’s Quest and Space Quest), it’s difficult to go into specifics without spoiling much of the story.  You take control of Marty in the year 1986 and solve puzzles to progress.  You frequently interact with other characters like Einstein the dog and Emett Brown, who aid you along the way.  If there’s one thing that I absolutely love in an adventure game, it’s a skull cracking puzzle that stumps me for days.  I love the satisfying feeling of solving something difficult, and unfortunately Back to the Future: the Game never provided me with this experience.  Not once.  In fact, I rarely ever had to consult the hint menu in Episode 2.  None of the episodes are very long in length and will take you anywhere from two to four hours to complete them.  Episode 1 took me exactly 3 hours from start to finish, which may leave some players miffed.

All of the voice acting is top notch and nothing feels out of place.  Doc Brown is voiced by Christopher Lloyd and  while they couldn’t get  Michael J. Fox to return as Marty McFly, A.J. Locascio does an amazing job.  Many familiar characters from the movies pop in throughout the story, including the obnoxious Biff Tannen who once again makes trouble for Marty.  All of the environments and characters have a bit of a cartoony feel to them, but it never feels juvenile.  On the contrary, you’re put in some life threatening situations along the way that involve explosives, guns and other nasty business.  Sadly, you can’t actually die in the game, unlike the King’s Quest series from the early 80s.  I think this is a detriment because it removes some of the challenge from the game, but I can understand the reasons behind this decision.  The game is very forgiving if you need a while to figure something out and doesn’t rush you along.

In any case, the challenge just isn’t here.  It’s a very entertaining story with nice visuals and a superb voice cast, but if you want an adventure game that you can really sink your teeth into, try Kaptain Brawe: a Brawe New World.  However, Back to the Future: the Game is definitely worth your money and time, especially if you are a fan of the movies.  TellTale Games does a terrific job of pushing the “all movie games suck” to the side and lets players just enjoy living in the past (literally) for a little while.  I eagerly anticipate the arrival of Episode 4: Double Visions and TellTale Game’s next trip down memory lane with Jurassic Park: the Game this fall.

The Mantle Kick

How many times have you taken cover at a conveniently-located chest-high wall only to discover that, rather inconveniently, your opponent has chosen the same wall to take cover behind? You each switch to your trusty Gnasher Shotgun and fire off some rounds of blind fire to break the ice, then dance back and forth, surreptitiously popping up to take a proper shot at your opponent. It plays out like a game of Whack-A-Mole, except the hammers are shotguns, and the mole in question is trying to kill you. To do away with such antics, Epic has introduced the Mantle Kick. Executed by pressing the ‘A’ button, the Mantle Kick will send your character vaulting over the wall, delivering a solid kick to anyone foolish enough to be sitting on the other side. Successful execution of the Mantle Kick will leave a victim momentarily stunned, and horribly vulnerable to all manner of blades and bullets. Take that, you stupid mole!

Spotting

The Gears of War games are all about teamwork, and while a single player can sometimes run the table and massacre an entire team, it usually takes a co-operative effort in order to secure victory. One of the best ways to co-operate is through communication, but with the advent of Party Chat and the sometimes volatile environment found in online games, communicating with the entirety of your team may prove difficult or painful. Thankfully, Gears of War 3 features a new Spotting mechanic that allows players to pinpoint the location of enemies in a non-verbal manner. Clicking the left stick while your crosshair is trained on an enemy will place a marker over their head for a few seconds that can be seen by all teammates, even through walls and obstructions. The best part? If a teammate kills an enemy that you have spotted, you get an XP award. High five!

Tac/Com

The Tac/Com, short for Tactical Communication, isn’t anything new to Gears players. However, having practical applications for it in multiplayer matches is! Activated by pressing the Left Bumper, the new and improved Tac/Com will give players much more information during matches than its predecessor, including the ability to see the location of teammates, where weapons spawn on the map, and it will even identify wall-tagged grenades as being friendly or not. Additionally, we learned that Leaders in the new Capture the Leader mode can use the Tac/Com to see the location of their enemies, allowing them to issue more helpful orders to their subordinates. I’m going to miss sneaking up on leaders to steal a victory, but I’ll settle for them quaking in their boots as they see me coming.

Map Preview

Knowing where to find the best weapons on any given level offers a huge strategic advantage, so Epic has included a new Map Preview feature that gives players the skinny on where to find the good stuff. Before each match begins, an illustrated overhead view of the map is shown, complete with designated names for each area of the map, such as ‘The Crane’ and ‘Concession Stands’, to aid players in describing the maps. Furthermore, if players view the map during the game, it will be updated with the location of weapon spawns. This is immensely helpful to new players, and helps me plan my strategy from the moment the match starts, which typically amounts to “I’m heading to the Torque Bow!”

Meatshield Tagging

Using an enemy as a meatshield to protect yourself from his or her understandably upset teammates is a hobby of mine. Sometimes I even perform a ventriloquism act, saying things like “if you kill me, you’ll never get that money I owed you,” or, “you wouldn’t shoot a Locust with glasses, would you?” Okay, so I don’t actually do that – not out loud anyways. However, for those looking to add a little more fun to their meatshield experience, Epic has included an awesome new feature: Meatshield Tagging! If you’re carrying a meatshield and have grenades in your possession (any will do), you can press up on the d-pad to attach your grenade to the meatshield, then send the bundle of joy hurtling toward your enemies for an explosive reunion. Even better, if you’re fresh out of grenades, but your meatshield was carrying them, you can use theirs instead! “Get ready for a surprise!”

Control Tweaks

Here’s the situation: Don and I are about to secure the Torque Bow when a Locust Grunt rushes around the corner, frothing at the mouth, and downs Don with a single shot of his active-charged Gnasher Shotgun. Not wanting to face the rabid brute on my own, I quickly press the ‘X’ button to revive my fallen teammate. However, instead of reviving him, I unexpectedly pick up the Torque Bow and get gibbed during the ensuing pick-up animation. While I typically value the Torque Bow higher than Don’s life, things probably would have played out differently had I actually revived him. Unfortunately, such accidents were common in the first two Gears of War titles, but it has finally been addressed. Epic has made a distinction between actions that use the same buttons by changing some of them to a hold function. To revive a teammate, you tap ‘X’, and to pick up a nearby weapon, you now hold ‘X’ for a second. The same is true for executions; you tap ‘Y’ to quickly curbstomp an enemy, and hold ‘Y’ for the more bloody and satisfying, weapon-specific executions. This should help us avoid situations like the one described above, but I guess it means that I can no longer lie to Don about whether or not I actually intended to revive him instead.

In our brief time with the beta, we fell in love all over again. It has all of the makings of what made the first two Gears of War titles great, but polished to perfection. Veteran Gears will feel right at home, and thanks to many of the new features, players new to the franchise will find it easier to pick up and play than previous instalments. Join us on Monday when we review each of the four maps found in the Beta, as well as post a Q&A with Epic’s crazy canuck, Rod Fergusson.

There are actually significant improvements to the gameplay, depending on what kind of games you like to play. The combat is much more of an action style game, especially for console, where you have to button mash normal attacks. Characters never just walk up to their targets to attack. They will jump, charge, roll, or do something else equally dramatic and the end result is that the combat feels very cool and dynamic. However, it still plays like MMOs such as World of Warcraft, RIFT, or DC Universe Online, except that you can pause the combat and take control of different characters in order to get more strategic control. On PC, you can move your character using the WSAD keys, or by pointing and clicking, or by holding both mouse buttons down, which is the way I’m used to navigating in WoW. Removed from this game is the bird’s eye camera that would truly give you a strategic sense of the battlefield, but I didn’t miss it too much.

Questing was made much simpler with quest markers. People with quests will have an exclamation mark above their heads while people or things relevant to a quest in your Journal will have some arrows pointing to it. This new “feature”, so prominent in other games, is actually an unwelcome change. Sure, it’s great that the game is easier to play, and I’ve always been a big believer in making things easier to play, but I found myself just mindlessly following the markers instead of taking the time to know my environments and talk to every NPC in the city. Instead of picking the quests I felt were urgent, I would just go to the areas with the most quests to complete. It’s not that exploration isn’t rewarded, but it is to a lesser extent than the first game. The first game was more immersive simply because it forced you to figure out things on your own, and I prefer immersion in my single player RPGs.

The Tactics system, borrowed from Final Fantasy XII, remains intact. This is usually a boon and for most of the game you just let your NPCs do their thing, but there are occasionally hard battles where you must turn these off and control things on your own. There’s no easy way to disable all the Tactics, but that’s a minor complaint. I enjoy the Tactics system and how it just keeps the game flowing when you don’t need to micromanage things.

Dragon Age II keeps the Enchantment system from the last game, where you place runes that you find into weapons and armour in order to increase their effectiveness. It also introduces a crafting system, where you can find different sources of materials throughout the world and then craft potions, bombs, poisons, or runes from them. You’ll have to discover the recipes for them, too. Unlike the last game, you can’t recover the runes from your equipment, and you have to destroy them by slotting a new rune. Even though that improves the enchantment system, the crafting system feels unfinished. The crafting table just becomes another store. Discovering the materials are a way to reward you for exploring, but it’s too shallow and straightforward to be enjoyable, and not quite involved enough to be annoying. So in the end, the items are useful, but the system is like that wallflower at the high school dance: It’s just kind of there.

The skill trees are a bit more interesting this time around, with each tree being a graph of different dependencies. Once again you’ll get two specialization points to spend in two of the three specializations you can get for each class. Each of the Warrior, Rogue, and Mage classes had 6 skill trees plus 3 specializations, so you can actually get fairly diverse characters even within the same class. The spells and skills look really cool, too. Every spell is a joy to use because of the magnificent effects that happen, such as encasing someone in rock with Petrify, or spraying an arc of ice with Cone of Cold.

The Stamina and Mode systems are kept from the last game, so if you choose to turn on helpful Modes, it will reserve a portion of your Stamina or Mana that you would otherwise use on skills or spells. This is an interesting trade off and definitely affects your gear decisions and decisions about which skills to pick up.

The equipment management interface underwent an upgrade as you have the option not to show your helmet, and now things are sorted into five helpful categories: Weapons and Shields, Armour, Trinkets/Belts, Consumables, and Junk. Looting everything from a container or corpse is now bound to a hotkey, making looting a smooth experience. However, you can no longer choose what armour your party members wear. Though you have full control over your own gear, you can only choose weapons, shields, necklace, belt, and two rings for your other characters. In place of choosing what armour they wear, you are forced to find up to five upgrade slots for their armours, usually by going through their individual story quests. I don’t really understand why BioWare chose to do it this way, but it means that most of the torso armour, helmets, boots, and gloves you find are garbage to be sold as they will not be for your class. Upgrading the equipment of my party is one of the joys of playing RPGs, so in this particular aspect Dragon Age II is only a quarter of what nearly every other RPG delivers.

Perhaps the most important system of all to any BioWare game is the Friendship system. This is equivalent to the Paragon system in the Mass Effect franchise, and appeared in some form in Neverwinter Nights, Knights of the Old Republic, and everything significant BioWare has made dating back to Baldur’s Gate. After all, what is awesome about BioWare games are the choices you have to make and how other people will like or dislike you for them. If you become friends or rivals with different party members in Dragon Age II, they will gain an extra skill. For example, if you are friends with Aveline, the protective warrior, she will start taking a portion of your damage in your stead. Being friends or rivals will also have massive implications at certain points in the game, but I can’t discuss it too much without spoiling the story.

The game centers primarily around space-pirate Grayson Hunt and his brother-in-arms Ishi, as they attempt to escape from the ruined paradise resort world of Stygia. After warping out of deep space and coming upon the flagship of the General that betrayed them, The Ulysses, Grayson makes a drunken kamikaze attack on the ship, essentially punching the most advanced Warbird in the galaxy in the face. While his ship is nearly destroyed and goes plummeting onto the surface of a strange alien world, the Ulysses is also wrecked, and both ships crash a few miles apart. Grayson then attempts to not only exact his revenge on the general, but get himself and Ishi off the world as well.

The gameplay consists of lots of standard shooter fare with a ton of added kicks in the form of “skillshots”. These skillshots range from something as simple as a headshot (25 points) to something zanier, like kicking someone into electric cables (50 points) or shooting them in the groin, then blowing their head off as they writhe in pain (gleefully named “Mercy” and rewarding 100 points). There are a litany of over 100 skillshots, and every new weapon added into your arsenal further increases the number of creative ways you can destroy and maim those around you. A “leash”, which you discover fairly quickly in the game, is a module that attaches to your hand and displays both skillshot information and your ammo. It ties in with the various dead-drops you discover in the game. These dead-drops are where you cash in the points you make with your kills to unlock new weapons and ammo. In the context of the story, these were left here by a previous military campaign, and (in a delightfully Darwinian twist) were designed specifically so only the good soldiers would receive more ammo or better weapons.

There are a large number of set encounters: Big, crazy scripted battles where you are up against an unusual enemy or have a super powered weapon for a short amount of time. The game plays out nicely, moving at a breakneck pace from caves to trains to cliffs to villages to cities, propelling you through an amazing number of creative, vibrant, and stunning levels. This is one of the things I enjoyed the most as this is a departure from other shooters. Each level looks beautifully detailed, from the massive vistas near a gigantic dam, to the beautiful sci-fi skyscrapers, and crazy, The Fifth Element-headbutts-Bioshock design, to many of the more civilized parts of the city. The natural flora and fauna of Stygia are just as wide ranging and vivid, from electro-flies to huge man-eating Venus fly traps, and hilarious pods called Noms that, when kicked at an enemy, latch onto their heads and start chewing headcrab-style. That’s only a taste of the enemies you encounter on this murder paradise.

The game controls are tight and easy to pick up, and they at least use the matching buttons when giving you quick time events, such as shoot when you need to shoot in the sequence. One button activates the leash, and holding it down fires a “thumper” that launches all enemies caught in the area into the air, making them easy pickings. The artificial intelligence (AI) of your allies is competent enough, and invincible to the point where you usually don’t have to worry about them. The enemy AI is akin to Left 4 Dead, in which melee enemies swarm you, and regular shooter fare by using cover to advance into a confetti of bullets raining down on them.

The game is accompanied by a suitable soundtrack of loud, action movie fanfare, and squishy, gooey, gorey sounds whenever you land a good kill. The weapons have a great, loud kick to them and the charge shots that come with each weapon sound devastating and brutal. The dialogue is ridiculous and offensive, and delightfully colourful. The visuals mix perfectly with the audio, providing graphically sound and satisfying character models, level design, and effects. Explosions in particular look bright and powerful, streaming off like fireworks from their origin.

The multiplayer and “echo” segments, both of which involves replaying single player levels or edited maps, have some enjoyable times to be had, and it’ll keep your interest for a while as you attempt to get three stars on various challenges. But aside from that, it’s a straightforward multiplayer component, with the cooperative “Horde” mode (like swarm or wave cooperative modes in other shooters) adding a more diverse element.

Bulletstorm is raw and distilled fun for a mature audience. If you love cheesy sci-fi pulp and over-the-top machismo, mixed in with a vibrant, straightforward shooter, this is a game to add to your collection.

Due to the sheer volume of customers Blizzard has, submitting an in-game ticket could sometimes take up to a week before a satisfying result would come around.  This was not pleasant, but I thought, “well… maybe something good could come out of this.”  I would at least be able to see how Trion’s customer service would stack up against Blizzard’s behemoth.  Having worked in customer service for over ten years, I know all too well how much it can ruin your day to get an overly hostile customer.  No matter how frustrated I get, I never treat customer service representatives like crap and neither should you.

My first thought was to contact Zann, who is in charge of RIFT’s official Twitter account.  In the past Zann has always been friendly and very responsive, so if you don’t already have a Twitter account but you do play RIFT, I would highly suggest making an account if only to contact them in the future.

There were a few weird things about my problem.  For one thing, not all of my money was taken.  I was left with 82 gold and I still had some crafting gems left on my character.  No self-respecting gold farmer hacks an account and leaves gems and money behind.  This seemed a little too fishy to me, but I still went to change my password just in case. The only problem was that I had never seen the presented security question in my life.  I never would have picked this question as my security question in a million years, so it was time to call Trion!

In my past experience with customer support, it has never been possible to change my security question easily.  Most of the time they’d like you to fax in some information about yourself, such a driver’s license, to prove that you are who you say you are.  This is a great way to keep people from stealing your account but the downside is that it could also turn out to be a hassle.

It took a little bit of digging around on the Trion website, but I found the support phone numbers easily enough.  When I called, I was greeted by the standard “thank you for calling!” automated message and was instructed to pick my language and what type of department I was looking to contact.  Once I had selected account and billing, I was told I would be on hold for two minutes.  Two minutes?  At first I thought they said two hours, because that’s what I’m used to.  I’m used to sitting there with a phone on my ear while I surfed the net for a bit, so two minutes sounded better than excellent – it was absolutely fabulous!

Unfortunately while I was one minute into the queue, support hung up on me.  I immediately called back and jumped back into the queue.  This time they said I would be on hold for three minutes.  No big deal.  As time went on, I was told five minutes, then six.  After the two minute mark had passed, I was hung up on again.  Feeling a little frustrated by this point I called for a third time – and you know what they say: The third time’s the charm.  I was finally greeted by a very pleasant man, but I could barely understand him.  Flashbacks of calling Dell tech support in college began to creep through my mind as I attempted to explain my problem to him.  He was very nice. So nice that he sounded extremely apologetic and weary, as though I had just kicked him in the face nine times.

He assured me that my account was okay and was definitely not compromised.  Phew.  But how does that explain the weird security question?  He then asked me what the answer to the security question was.  I explained to him again that I didn’t know, because that wasn’t the security question I had set up.  He then asked me to please wait while he asked his supervisor what to do.  Thank you, thank you Trion for not blasting music from the game while I was on hold.  I really do not like sitting there with music constantly looping over and over. I really got sick of the Grizzly Hills music from World of Warcraft, and I used to love that music!

I was on hold for about seven minutes and when the customer service representative returned, he had more questions for me.  I answered all of them and had to repeat most answers two or three times due to the language problems, which is par for the course if you’re used to calling tech support.  At the end I couldn’t really understand him very well but he told me that he’d ask someone to switch the security question for me.  I didn’t have to fax in a driver’s license or any additional information about myself, and it was that plain and simple.

Note that while this sounds all very clean and easy, it was not.  This phone call lasted around thirty to forty minutes, explaining and re-explaining the problem over and over.  He couldn’t really understand me and I couldn’t understand him.  Phone support is a little tricky when there is a language issue so while I was glad I didn’t have to wait very long to speak with someone, I wasn’t confident my issue would be fixed because the customer service representative was very vague over the phone.  When we hung up, I was sent an automated e-mail thanking me for calling and if I had any other issues to please contact them again.  While on the support page, I located an area for submitting a question.  Since I got my account supposedly taken care of, I would try to get my in-game nakedness fixed too.

There’s a place to submit a question on the Trion support page, so that’s what I did.  I asked if my problem was a bug and if I was eligible for a character restore.  That was the way to get your stuff back in World of Warcraft, so I figured this was the way it would work in RIFT, too.

Since I had planned on writing this article, I decided after thirty minutes to call Trion back to confirm that my security question was going to be fixed (because by this point, it hadn’t and I was getting worried he didn’t understand me).  I was only in the queue for a mere twenty seconds or so before another customer service representative answered the phone. To my dismay, he was even more difficult to understand than the first one.  I slowly explained the problem I was having, told him how I contacted them earlier but wasn’t sure if my issue would be resolved.  He re-confirmed that no, this was not an account compromise but an in-game issue.  That’s a pretty important thing to know.

It was frustrating to say something then have the representative on the other line go, “what?” and then ask him to repeat everything he said because I couldn’t understand him either.  This whole ordeal felt like pulling teeth but both of us remained very polite to one another despite the fact that we sounded like two elderly folks who couldn’t hear one another.

Quite a while later, the rep and I finally came to an understanding and my issue was resolved.  Relieved, I thanked him and hung up.  Now it was time to see about contacting a GM in game.  Here’s a tip:  If you asked a question via the little form they have you fill out on the Trion support page, do not submit a ticket.  Conversely, if you have opened a ticket in game, then don’t fill out that form on the support page.  Sadly, I filled out both and when I finally had a GM answer my ticket in game, they told me I already had “multiple tickets open.”  I had no idea what they were talking about since this was the only in game ticket I had filled out.  Enter more confusion.

Apparently the question you fill out on the support page counts as a ticket and they will only respond to one.  I checked my e-mail and apparently they had asked me in the e-mail if I would like a character restore.  The problem was, I couldn’t reply back to this e-mail.  I went back into the game and used the other ticket I already had open and just typed out “yes please,  I would like a restore” in the text box.  Within a couple minutes I was knocked out of the game by an administrator and received my character restore.  All of my money, items and gear were back and my character was back in the spot where I last left her.

In the meantime, I had received a couple direct messages via Twitter from Zann, who wanted to make sure that my problem was taken care of.  Now that’s service!  I checked the forums and saw a few people complaining about the customer service – specifically, the outsourced customer service representatives and how frustrating it was to get anything accomplished.  In the end, not everyone’s customer service experience is going to be a good one.  There will be some people who have their issues fixed within minutes and for others, days.

Now let’s break the customer service down a bit…

Trion Customer Service Report Card

Phone service: C

I didn’t have to wait very long at all for service.  The most I had to wait was about three to five minutes, which is great but I was also hung up on twice in a row, which is not so great.  Once on the phone, the representatives had difficulty understanding me and vice versa.  This hurts the service because I can see many short tempered people either yelling at the representatives or giving up completely. Having someone tell me that it would be fixed and finding out that it wasn’t was bad. Very bad.

In-game service: B+

I waited a long, long time with that ticket open and for a while there I was thinking I wasn’t going to receive help.  While it would have been nice to actually speak to someone in real time (like in World of Warcraft) instead of through the actual ticket itself, my issue was ultimately resolved.

Web service: C

I’m giving the web service a C because it isn’t the easiest to navigate.  It’s not overly difficult, but nothing is really out there in plain view.  You’re going to have a dig a little bit to get a phone number and it wasn’t very clear that if I submitted a question via the “submit a question” form it would count as an in-game ticket.

Twitter service: A+

Zann is also quick, helpful and takes the job seriously.  Doing a quick inquiry with @Riftgame is always the first place I go when I have a question or in need of some minor assistance.

Overall score: B

There are a couple of areas that could be improved, but in the end my problem was fixed within the same day and in only a matter of about two hours.  If you aren’t used to using customer service for an MMORPG, this may seem like a long time, but compared to NCSoft’s (Aion, Guild Wars) customer service, this was a dream come true.  As I mentioned before: Not everyone’s customer service experience will be the same and I’m not even sure if the support will remain this responsive.  Considering the game was only officially launched on the first, I’d say this was an above-average experience.

The thing that worries me the most is just how easy it was to get the security question changed.  While on the phone with rep #2, he asked me a series of questions that could have been easily found under my account settings.  If someone did hack my account, they’d be able to see that my account was a standard edition game and the last four digits of the credit card used for the subscription.  While it’s great that I personally didn’t have to jump through any hoops to get it changed, it makes me a little leery that the support might be on the weak side.  Only time will tell, I guess.

Now, if only that bug didn’t exist in the first place.

Nevertheless, Atlus revealed today that the game will arrive in North America this summer – only a few months after its Japanese release.  No details were given, but you can check out the shell of a website, and even get your pre-orders in from Amazon.ca if you can’t wait.  The game will be available for both PS3 and Xbox 360.

Personally, I’m excited about the game, and am always eager to support Atlus in taking the risk of bringing games English speakers otherwise wouldn’t have an opportunity to enjoy.  We’ll keep you updated when Atlus reveals more.

[Source: Atlus]

Before we go any further, let me display a huge spoiler warning: There are spoilers for all three games. If you care, then you should stop reading this list right now and just take my word for it.

So why does Kratos deserve the title of the Baddest Dude to ever grace a screen of any resolution?

1. His Weapons

Now, I’m not saying you can’t be badass if you use guns, and of course you get double points for using two guns, but nothing beats in your face evisceration, decapitation, and defenestration. Let’s face it – being gutted with spiky or sharp things hurts a hell of a lot more than a gunshot wound to the head, so the danger posed in hand-to-hand combat is just infinitely cooler than standing at 100 yards shooting at each other from cover.

As an extra bonus, the Ghost of Sparta doesn’t just use a big sword (which is extremely overdone). He has Athena-given hell blades attached to chains that he whips around at high speed without mortally wounding himself. He uses other weapons too, such as a massive maul, some weird spear thing, or the Nemean Cestus – all weapons that guarantee some unadulterated, M-rated hurt. Somehow Sony keeps inventing new weapons with which to inflict pain, so props to them!

2. The Spirit of Vengeance

Even his sackboy is kind of badass

There are only three acceptably badass reasons to kill things and enact carnage: Vengeance, protecting loved ones, or to test yourself against formidable opponents, and of these vengeance is by far the most badass. It’s why Hamlet is the best Shakespeare play, and why Kill Bill is so awesome. There’s just nothing that says “don’t mess with me” like working through three games and forty hours just to kill your father.

And the type of vengeance found in God of War is the best kind of vengeance. The kind that destroys everything and everyone in its path. Now, there was a bit of a cop out at the end of the third game, but nevertheless, I’m sure Kratos will just come back to prove he’s even more badass than before. Somehow.

3. He Won’t Stay Dead

Kratos dies a total of three times in the series, and each time he has to start with a crappy life and magic bar and get all his weapons back, but that doesn’t stop this giant among men. The Underworld can’t possibly hold Kratos, and he even kills Hades to prove it. Oh, and going back to point 2, he came back to kill everyone who killed him. Take that, jerks!

4. Never Tell Me The Odds!

No matter how impossible the odds are in Call of Duty or Uncharted, they’re mostly dealing with human soldiers or supernatural monsters. And sure, those odds are impressive, but when you’re comparing that to the actual gods and titans of Greek mythology, it’s kind of like comparing Ben Johnson to The Flash. Kratos’s enemies have incredible powers, are supposedly immortal, and have overwhelming numbers on their side. Some of them are as powerful as the Fates, who are even above gods and titans.

And when he beats them, he has a flair for the dramatic – poking their eyes out or slamming a door against their heads repeatedly or just plain ripping their heads off. Blandly stabbing a god to death just doesn’t cut it in his book.

5. Where Does He Get Those Wonderful Toys?

I’ll tell you where – from his enemies. It would be pretty badass to be prying Hades’s blades from his dead corpse, for example, but Kratos actually tops that: He takes them from his enemies while they are still alive. And you can guess what happens once he takes the weapons from them. Whether it’s Hercules’s Nemean Cesti or Helios’s revealing head, Kratos makes sure his enemies know they are donating to his quest for vengeance before they die, and it’s ever so satisfying.

6. Means to an End

Did you hear the one about where he leaped off a flaming pegasus to mutilate some fools?

There is something inexplicably badass about travelling through several rooms and a couple of combat puzzles just to grab Poseidon’s hussy, escort her to a spinning wheel mechanism that controls a massive gate, and tie her to it while she pleads for her life. Sorry toots, your body was for some reason the only way to jam the mechanism! Most lesser people might try to break off something in the environment – but not Kratos!

In another case, if there is a large chasm he needs to get across, he’ll piss off some Harpies, hook his blades into them and stab them until they go in the direction and distance that he wants to go before he turns them into worm meat.

That’s right. Unless you remind him of his child, whom he also killed, you pretty have no chance of surviving his wrath and/or his puzzle solving needs. He’d just as soon let you burn to pick up your magical bow off your dead corpse as help you escape and give it to him willingly. This guy doesn’t run around doing quests for rewards. He just beats the reward out of you.

7. His Nickname

He’s called the Ghost of Sparta, because the ashes of his murdered family cling to his body, presumably because he’s the one that murdered them. How awesome is that?

8. Badass of the Week (and of all time, in my heart)

Kratos, to date, is the only videogame character to have appeared as a Badass of the Week. This is where I learned he was also an actual character in Greek mythology that bore some similarities with the character in the game. It’s a pretty good read and I recommend everyone read it for more proof of his Badassosity.

So there you have it! Kratos is the most badass of all time. Do you have someone else in mind? Leave your flawed reasoning in the comments!

I hope you didn’t hang your hat on this one, though, because it would be on the floor, dirty, and trampled by visitors or eaten by a dog. In some ways, M:tGT is everything you’d expect. It’s a turn-based tactics game where you move your avatar and other creatures around the square-based board. The goal is to destroy the other Planeswalker (in other words, a wizard) and their army before they destroy you. This is accomplished through building a spellbook made of various creatures that can be summoned or spells that can be cast. Spells vary from direct attack spells, such as Lightning Bolt, to things that may boost your creatures. The mechanics of the gameplay are quite simple: Each round your maximum mana goes up by one, and the colour of the mana is determined by the composition of your deck. So for example, if your deck has 80% red cards, then you have an 80% chance of getting one extra red mana each round. Your mana fills up to the maximum in each colour every round, so at least that is a clever way around the “mana screw” problem that frustrates all Magic players. Then, in a turn order determined by the initiative of the creatures, you get to use their abilities and move or move and attack. Moving, whether it ends in an attack or not, will always end the current piece’s turn. When it’s a Planeswalker’s turn, they can cast a spell that they have available (you start with five and you get one new one from your spellbook every round) and have mana for, and then move/attack. As with many tactics type games, flanking will deal bonus damage and there are random critical hits. If a creature hasn’t died from being attacked, it will perform a full counter attack.

I believe I ordered the large djinn.

That is it. Everything else is covered by the statistics of the creatures, such as movement or attack strength, or the abilities on the cards. There is a decent variety of abilities, but it still ends up feeling like there is not a lot of choice in the colours you’re playing. You’re given a very basic two colour deck to start with, and you can go through the tutorial section and the first campaign, which consists of five missions, for free. After that, each of the four extra five mission campaigns costs $5 USD, which is actually not terrible value in terms of length even if the gameplay never gets more interesting. The plot of the campaigns is very bland. The narrator does an okay job but the plot might as well not be there. What is interesting though is that you get experience for each mission and eventually when you get enough levels, you get some talent points to spend on talent trees. For example, a talent that made my creatures stronger when the enemy Planeswalker was below 50% health influenced how aggressive I would be with my creatures and who they would target. Completing a campaign will also unlock the Daily missions for that campaign, each of which reward you 2 gold and some paltry experience.

You can use gold to buy into tournaments, so it seems like you can play this game for free and forever. Technically, you don’t have to spend a single penny. You can just do the Daily mission from the free campaign every day, and then every fifteen days or so you can enter a single tournament. You’ll probably be bored to tears way before you can get into your first tournament at that rate though, so you’ll likely have to plop down at least the $20 USD for the campaigns and then a bucket load of time every day in order to earn enough gold to free ride your way through. If you place in the prize positions in the tournament then you may luck out and get a card worth selling on the Auction House for some more gold to fuel more tournaments. There are Open Tournaments that players can enter that are always happening. You play all the games you can during the period, and if you meet the requirements when the tournament period ends, then you get a small prize. When I looked at the prizes, everything awarded to people finishing belwow second place was dismal, so it seems like a whole lot of work for not a lot of reward if you can’t play enough to win. There are Constructed Tournaments where you bring the spellbook you put together to compete, and there’s also the very popular “Draft” format, where you have to purchase booster packs for $4 USD each and then each person takes turns picking cards from the packs until all the cards are gone.

And of course you can always play single matches against opponents for the heck of it, which would be cool if the gameplay was deep. However, there really isn’t all that much to do other than position for flanks and attack, and the interactions between creatures and spells are simplistic and direct for the most part. The fight for positioning is straightforward. The spellbook building side of things is also surprisingly restrictive. In addition to the usual Magic limit of 4 copies of each spell, you are limited to a maximum of 12 different creatures and 12 different spells. Why this is the case is beyond me, but if you wanted to play only one of every creature in your colour, too bad! I found that sometimes I had to make the inconvenient decision not to play a better creature just because I had 4 copies of a weaker creature, I needed 40 spells to fill out the spellbook, and I had to maintain the balance between spells and creatures.

You'll find iconic cards such as Reya Dawnbringer in Tactics

Even if the game had deeper gameplay, though, it would still be mired in a variety of technical issues that seem to plague every Wizards of the Coast electronic product. In my time playing it I suffered glitches that ranged from infuriating to hilarious, such as a frame rate plummet (to 1 frame per second) after multitasking away from the game window or the game chat doubling in the multiplayer room. One of my friends said it crashed on him after every mission. One particularly frustrating glitch was that in the midst of a long mission, the computer AI actually could not decide what to do and ended up being stuck there, forcing a restart. In tournaments, if you crash or you disconnect due to some Internet problem, reconnecting will not put you back into the game – you simply forfeit. In a tournament I played, I ended up forfeiting two games this way, and in the third game my opponent was away from the keyboard, thus defaulting a win to me.

The tournament design is a bit of a tragedy in itself, as you have to stay until the end to wait for the prizes, even if you’re done your games and you know where you will place. It doesn’t even boot you out of the tournament after the end, and I only found out it ended because people received their prizes. The tournament chat lobby is also not segregated among tournaments or even tournament types as far as I could tell and it became a confusing mess of conversations.

Even the Auction House has an pitiful interface, which seems unacceptable after having so many examples of good ones around. For example, there is no search feature. You can only filter by Rarity, Colour, and Type, and you can’t sort the list by any of the columns. And the default sorting is a complete mystery. Interface issues aren’t restricted to the Auction House though, as various other baffling choices litter the game. For example, you can’t look at your talents without leaving the tournament you’re in. During the actual match, if you have more than 7 spells that you can cast that turn, the spell bar doesn’t expand and you need to click these tiny up and down arrows to look at all your spells.

The graphics in the game are kind of bland but acceptable. Some of the animations are fun to watch but an option to speed them up or skip them all together would be nice as I only need to see them so many times. But it’s a nice touch to see my Thieving Magpie get pounded to the floor when it takes a hit. The sounds and music are just kind of there and forgettable.

Much like Duels of the Planeswalkers, this game could have been so much more. It combined one of my favourite genres with one of my favourite brands, and yet it came up so short that it only aggravated my need for a good tactics game. Being a game that you can play for as long and as often as you would like to, Tactics could actually offer a lot of value if you enjoy it. Personally, I’ll just keep playing Duels and the actual card game with my friends.

For a couple of months, my new phone was being used as just that – a phone.  For a while this was all I needed and wanted until someone on Twitter pointed out that I was seriously under using the device and made me feel like an idiot for even owning one in the first place.  Why did I have a smart phone if I wasn’t tweeting from it and browsing the Internet?  Smart phones are for apps and games – not phone calls!  So here I am, I have finally made it to the year 2008 (still behind the times, but oh well) with my brand new phone and I am happy to announce that I purchased my first game last week: Game Dev Story.

Game Dev Story: the battery killer

A friend of mine brought up an interesting point the other day while we were discussing the Nintendo 3DS.  She insisted that handhelds systems such as the Nintendo 3DS and PSP were not “for us”, as in adult gamers.  They were for kids who didn’t have cell phones to play games or download crazy apps.  I was kind of surprised by this point of view and while I certainly don’t think it’s wrong (after all, it’s her opinion), I don’t think it’s necessarily correct, either. Every day I see someone chatting about the new PSP NGP on Twitter and it’s usually accompanied by, “I have a cell phone for gaming, I don’t need another radically expensive portable.”  I have only just entered the cell phone gaming world but so far I haven’t encountered anything that would make me believe cell phone games are better than the games I have for my PSP or Nintendo DS.  While I would much rather go on trips with my Nintendo DS or PSP, travelling short distances with them, such as sitting on the bus or train, isn’t always the best idea, so my cell phone has come in handy to remedy this problem.

Someone else I talk to said that they don’t believe there is much of a market anymore for portable handheld devices because not many people would like to sit down on the couch and get engrossed in a game like God of War on a portable.  Most of my handheld gaming – and by most, I mean nearly all of it – is spent sitting on the couch and not out in transit.  I believe the games for these devices are good enough to sit and get lost in (Dragon Quest IX, anyone?) and many of them are arguably better than some of their console brothers and sisters. I will admit that some of the cell phone games are pretty cool.  I love that Fruit Ninja awards Xbox Live achievements and I am in love with Game Dev Story, a game that has sucked my phone’s battery dry twice already.  I would be extremely dismayed if the cell phone market killed off their competition, though I don’t ever see this happening and it’s because most of the cell phone games I’ve encountered just aren’t that good.  Diner Dash for Android is vastly inferior to its Nintendo DS counterpart and many of the games’ graphics nearly made my eyeballs bleed from how bad they were. Is the Nintendo 3DS being marketed to children?  Absolutely, but come release time you’ll most likely see hundreds upon thousands of eager adults standing in line to buy one for themselves.

All I ever needed to be happy.

Let’s get real for a moment: The Nintendo 3DS, love it or hate it, is going to be pushing envelopes all over the place and will do things for handhelds that has never been done before.  Even if it doesn’t appeal to everyone, it’s difficult to deny the ingenuity that went into the thing.  I honestly cannot see an iPhone game stacking up against that behemoth any time soon.  The PSP NGP appears to be a portable console that you can take with you.  PlayStation 3 graphics in your hands! Most kids these days own technology that I never dreamed of when I was eleven.  I had a Game Gear and a Giga Pet when I was a kid.  Now I see thirteen year olds with Blackberries and high-end laptops, so you can be sure that they’re playing games on their phones too.  The Nintendo 3DS’s price point is enough to make anyone balk and cell phone games may be nice and cheap, but then there’s the issue of actually finding them in the app store.  Navigating through the Android market is difficult because it lacks organization.

I’m really enjoying my smart phone and am glad that I made the jump from 2003 to 2008, but it’s not going to be replacing my PSP any time soon.  I don’t see the cell phone game market replacing traditional handhelds and I really don’t want it to.  I’m familiar with the concept of competition but I also think that there’s room for everybody at the gaming table and I’m glad there are so many options out there for gamers.  The Android Marketplace: While great for a quick, light snack, cannot replace a hearty meal that is available in the Nintendo DS library.

The answer is… it depends. When I said this mouse is a beast, I meant that quite literally – it is quite large, especially when compared to the small and sleek Xai. It’s not nearly as big as the Razer Boomslang or the original Xbox controllers, but it is big. When I opened it, I joked about needing a diagram to figure out how to hold it. So that is definitely one factor when deciding whether to get this mouse. My fingers and hand are completely used to it now, but it did take about a week to get used to. Oddly enough, I do find it more comfortable now than the Xai.

Another difference between the Xai and the Cataclysm Mouse is that the Xai has better software. There are more configuration settings on the Xai, and the settings themselves are more granular, allowing for greater control over how your mouse moves and functions. The Cataclysm mouse is supposed to have a neat profile thing going for it in the configuration screen where you can set one of your WoW characters to each of your profiles, but at the moment it’s not functioning so I can’t tell you what it’s supposed to do. One neat thing about the Cataclysm Mouse software is that you can control the illumination, including the rate of the pulse and the colour.

The specifications on the mice are basically the same, with the exception of the whopping fourteen buttons that come with the Cataclysm Mouse, compared to the pitiful eight that comes with the Xai. Through some kind of magic, World of Warcraft actually supports all the buttons, but I have yet to find any other game or application that does. As with the Xai, you can macro any sequence of buttons to the extra buttons that most applications and games don’t support, and with ten profiles you can really use the buttons with any game. The button placement on the Cataclysm Mouse are mostly convenient, with two (one on the outside of each of the left and right buttons) that are slightly inconvenient. Which turned out to be okay, because I just used them to bring up my world map and my quest log, both of which I do frequently but I don’t want to accidentally press in combat.

My favourite new buttons by far are the two that flank the mousewheel. I’m using these two lifesaving buttons to… well, save lives. On every character I have these bound to survival skills, such as Vanish. When I get into trouble, it’s a mere 3 millimeter slide of my middle finger in order to throw down my ninja smoke bombs and escape. It takes some work, but eventually you can train yourself to use all the new buttons (I’m still not using one of them after using this mouse for over a month), so if you have a need to keybind all your skills like I do, then this mouse is a must.

The mouse looks great, too. It doesn’t factor much into this review, but I thought I should mention it. It just looks good on my desk, which I appreciate.

I really have no complaints about this mouse whatsoever. But you have lower grained control over it than the Xai and it’s $10 more, so it’s hard to recommend this over the Xai unless you play World of Warcraft or another fairly involved MMOs (as in one that has a lot of abilities). If you are a regular raider or Arena artist though, then go ahead and get this mouse. You won’t be disappointed.

The wizards of Magicka weave their spells by combining the following eight elements: Water, Life, Shield, Ice, Lighting, Arcane, Earth, and Fire. Each of these elements are assigned a key on the keyboard, but some additional elements can be created by combining multiple base elements. Pressing an element key will store the respective element in your wizard’s spell queue, which can hold up to five elements simultaneously. Mixing elements together and then releasing them will create a spell, and hopefully, the desired result. Things start to get a little tricky when wizards realize that they can release their spells in one of four different ways: Projectile, Area of Effect, Self, and Weapon. Each type of spell will result in a different effect, even if they used the same elements. For instance, mixing the Fire and Shield elements and then releasing the spell as a projectile will create a wall of fire between you and your enemies, while releasing it on yourself will make you resistant to fire for a short period of time.

The beauty and horror of this system is that the game leaves it up to you to use common sense when mixing and casting spells. Mixing Earth and Fire and then releasing it on yourself will weave the arcane magicks of the universe in a manner that would result in a flaming boulder being summoned into existence above your head, and the rest is up to gravity. However, creative self-termination is an essential part of the experimentation process, and death is part of the game, remember?

Once you develop an understanding of how it all works, casting spells becomes very simple and intuitive, but doing it in combat is another story entirely. Navigating your character around the playing field involves pressing and holding the left mouse button on your desired destination, while the elements are mapped to the familiar WASD region of the keyboard, and the different spell types are executed with the remaining mouse buttons and the Shift key. Trying to cast Haste on yourself while you flee from a pair of cave trolls and dodge arrows fired by a distant group of goblins can often be disastrous. Take your eyes off the screen to correctly input your elements and you’ll likely end up on the wrong end of a giant club. Input the elements too quickly and carelessly and you could light yourself on fire, much to the amusement of the cave trolls. Accidents like this would frustrate me in most games, leading to criticisms of convoluted or complicated controls, but Magicka is different. The button layout is great, and I don’t think I could find one that works better, but more importantly, these accidents are part of what makes Magicka so fun to play. The action is very chaotic and overwhelming, often requiring you to deal with large swarms of enemies, and knowing that you’re one mistake away from a horrible fiery death can be exhilarating. Keeping a cool head and successfully casting your favourite spells in combat is very rewarding.

The action gets even more hectic when you add more players. Magicka features a host of spell combinations that result in greater damage. Shooting lighting at someone is more effective if you’ve sprayed them with water first, and launching a boulder at an enemy can be more devastating if they’re encased in ice. Using these combos can be the most efficient way of dealing with a powerful enemy, but coordinating them with other players can often lead to hilarious mishaps. Blue Wizard announces that he’s going to soak an oncoming troll with water, so Green Wizard prepares to summon a bolt of lighting from the sky. Blue Wizard accidentally casts the water spell as an area of effect, soaking Green Wizard as the lighting bolt strikes from the Heavens. Green Wizard needs food badly.

The action in Magicka unfolds across two game modes, Adventure and Challenge, both of which can be played cooperatively over the Internet or via a local network. The Adventure mode is a light-hearted, story-driven campaign that sees players travel across twelve expansive levels on their way to saving the world. Throughout the campaign, players can collect new wands and weapons that grant them new active and passive abilities, find spell books that contain new and powerful spells, and assist the lowly folk with side quests and other diversions. The adventure mode lasts anywhere from eight to ten hours, but may warrant additional playthroughs in order to collect and accomplish everything. For the more experienced wizards, Challenge mode presents players with a series of arena challenges in which they are forced to overcome waves of enemies in an enclosed space. Challenge mode can be very difficult, and should offer most players plenty of reason to come back.

As wonderful as the gameplay is, the graphical presentation is somewhat lacking by today’s standards. Some of the monsters look nice, if not a little generic, but there is very little variety in the types of monsters that you’ll face throughout the game. The environments suffer from a similar fate by offering a few interesting and colourful set pieces, but generally falling victim to an abundance of reused assets. It’s the spell effects that disappoint me the most, though. They’re not bad by any means, but they’re far from being fantastic, which is what they deserve to be. A few more particle effects and some more dynamic lighting would have gone a long way toward making each spell look truly remarkable. In the end, however, the graphics certainly get the job done, and you probably won’t have much time to sit around and admire the effects of your spells anyway. Unless one of them causes your friends a great deal of misery, because that can be fun to watch.

The sound design is also pretty generic, but is often used to humorous effect. Characters speak with a dialect that sounds like a cross between Simlish from The Sims and the Swedish Chef, with a few specific words sounding just familiar enough to get a laugh. The music is standard fantasy game fare, filled with lyres, lutes, and classical guitars, and while it doesn’t distract from the gameplay at all, it’s also hardly memorable. The grunts, groans, roars, and explosions are all suitable and believable, but like the music, don’t particularly stand out. It’s clear that most of the focus went into developing the fun and challenging gameplay, and it’s hard to fault Paradox Interactive for that.

Magicka is a charming game that takes classic action-adventure gameplay and gives it a unique twist. The spell-casting mechanic is very deep, yet remains intuitive, and gives players a chance to discover their own favourite spells and the strategies in which to employ them. The action is both intense and exciting, and being able to share the experience with friends is fantastic. You will die a lot in Magicka at the hands of enemies, comrades, and sometimes even yourself, but each death will be a story to laugh about later, and in the end: It’s just part of the game.

Review made possible by

For example, the new device finally includes dual analog sticks, something that has been sorely lacking for years in every iteration of the original PSP, and may be a problem in Nintendo’s new 3DS.  They are also sticks - not just nubs – and hopefully these should relieve the frustration many gamers experienced with the paltry one found in the current PSP. Sony has also finally bit the bullet and embraced touch technology.  The NGP will feature a capacitive touch screen (similar to an iPhone’s screen), as well as a touchpad on the back, which will presumably allow for touch-based controls that won’t interfere with your view of the screen.

The NGP also will have two built-in cameras (good-bye, bulky add-ons!), one facing outward, and one facing in, enabling various practical as well as in-game applications.  Like the iPhone and the 3DS, the NGP has built-in sensors for tilt and movement: A gyroscope, an accelerometer, and an electronic compass.  The device will also be WiFi capable, and have 3G, making it unique in that you can always have an Internet connection.  However, Sony hasn’t specified yet whether the device will require a contract and if a WiFi-only model will be available at a slightly lower cost.  Most likely we will learn more about this as the year goes on, since Sony has said the device won’t launch until the end of the year at the earliest.

Another thing achievement junkies will be pleased to hear: The NGP will be able to connect to PSN just like your PS3 does, and will support trophies at long last.  The device will also be partially backwards compatible, able to play PSP games, PS One titles, and Minis, provided these are digital in form, as the new device abandons the maligned UMD drive and discs in favour of flash-based media for retail games.

The NGP boasts power comparable to the PS3, and its OLED screen is supposedly better than anything else portable on the market. Reportedly, it blows the retina-display of Apple’s iPhone 4 out of the water with four times the resolution of the current PSP.  Over 80 publishers are supposedly on board and preparing games for the new device, although none have been revealed.  Along with the reveal of the NGP, Sony also revealed what they are calling the PlayStation Suite, which is sort of like an app store and will be available on Android devices to provide the “PlayStation experience” to various devices, including the yet-to-be-officially announced PSP Phone.  It isn’t clear whether these apps will be different from content normally found via PSN, and/or whether the PlayStation Suite will be available on the NGP.  Still, with the PS Suite presumably set to launch in tune with the NGP, it would seem that Sony has finally realized how much of a competitor Apple and its App Store really are.

Although no official price has yet been released, and probably won’t be for some time, some analysts are suggesting the device may have a list price of at least $299 US at launch due to the expensive equipment (such as the OLED screen, touch pad back, and more).  However, if Sony really has learned their lessons from the PSP Go, they’ll put the price at $250 US, making it a direct competition for Nintendo’s 3DS.

Personally, as much as I love my DSes (yes, I have several), right now Sony’s new device is looking much more appealing than Nintendo’s.  Of course, we have yet to hear pricing or any specific games, and we all know that games and the price are what sell systems, not fancy tech specs.

[Source: Sony North America Blog, Wired]

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• Comment on this article and make sure to include your Twitter name in the comment!

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Performing all of the aforementioned steps will earn you a total of four ballots, which will be randomly drawn on Friday, February 4 to determine who wins the Qosmio X500, as well as the envy of Canadian gamers across the nation.

Good luck!

Eligibility

You must be Canadian or a permanent resident of Canada, and 18 years of age or older to be eligible to enter this contest. Due to provincial sweepstakes laws, this contest is void in the province of Québec. For additional rules and regulations, please consult the GameNorth contest rules.

Upon inspection, RIFT: Planes of Telara seemed like just another MMORPG releasing in 2011.  It slipped quietly under my radar because I had Guild Wars 2 and Star Wars: The Old Republic in my crosshairs.  I just don’t get excited about every single MMORPG release anymore because I had been burned one too many times before, so I definitely wasn’t going to pre-order another unknown game just to acquire beta access.

Somehow though, that’s precisely what I did.

The premise of the game is fairly simple and straightforward, but with a twist.  You have two factions to pick from: The saintly Guardians who died on the battlefield but were raised by the Gods, or the faithless Defiants, a group of technology lovers who believe the Gods were the reason the Rifts started appearing in the first place.

Once I pre-ordered my game I received Beta access within about twenty minutes.  Within less than an hour I was already playing in Beta event #4 and so I had to pick which race and class I wanted to start with.  RIFT does things a little bit differently than the standard MMO.  You pick your base class and then once you’re in the game you collect things called souls which unlock different abilities.  With these abilities you can essentially create your own class, which is something that intrigued me.  I chose a High Elf Rogue for my first character, despite the Dwarven females being very cute (cute Dwarves in an MMO? Hell hath frozen over).

Character customization is more detailed than World of Warcraft but isn’t nearly as complex as Aion.  You can choose skin color, hair color, facial markings and tweak facial details such as nose size.  Hair styles were limited, but you can choose a highlight color and base color which made things a little more interesting.  For those of you who can’t stand overly complex character customization because no matter what you do your character always ends up looking like Swamp Thing, you’ll enjoy this.  For those of you who absolutely need endless character customization in your game, this may not be your cup of tea.  I’m hoping that we’ll see some more customization options before release, but I’m not holding my breath.

Not all Rifts look exactly the same.

The moment I logged into the game I could feel the urgency around me.  As tempting as it was to just run off and start playing, I immediately opened up my video settings and started tweaking things.  The game is very pretty; it runs on the same engine as Warhammer Online, but I wasn’t overly impressed by the visuals in that game.  I’ll just come out and say it: I think RIFT does it better.  I spoke with the quest giver, a large angel-like creature,  who gave me a bread crumb quest to speak with someone downstairs.  After a short series of “go speak with so and so” quests I was outside and already receiving my first soul.

It was time to choose my first combat ability and I went with the Bard soul, so I could tear monsters apart with the sound of my lovely music.  Off I went, jamming on my guitar and killing foes with ease.  I stopped for a few moments to take it all in – the softly glowing fire on the rooftops in the village below me, and the screaming people who were fleeing for their lives.  I soon realized that stopping to check things out was not the best idea because a large fireball from the sky came plummeting down and hit me.  It didn’t do much damage, but that’s when I realized that I was in a dynamic and interactive environment.  The fireballs being launched in the sky weren’t just there for aesthetics, they could actually hurt you.  I went into this Beta completely blind because I had heard so many good things from people I trust, so I really had no idea what to expect.

Along the way I picked up another soul and this time I picked Ranger.  The Ranger class is similar to those found in others MMOs – you use a bow as your primary weapon and make use of pets for damage.  You’re automatically given a Razorboar as your first pet and while it’s not something I would have chosen for myself, it gets the job done.  The story itself wasn’t bad, but for the duration of my time in the starting zone, which lasted from levels one through seven, I felt rushed and wasn’t fully absorbing all the information given to me.

One of the developers popped onto the screen via large text to announce that because of the large influx of players, they were going to be opening two new servers and teased everyone by stating, “you know what that means!”  For the following five minutes players sat in general chat whining and moaning about how long the developer was taking to finish his/her sentence.  Large text popped up on the screen again, this time saying: “…It means we’re taking all the servers down in ten minutes!”

As if on cue, players expressed their disappointment in general chat and the developer quipped back with:

“Oh come on now. Not ALL announcements can be fun.  Just to remind you all, in five minutes we’re bringing down the server!  And don’t worry, we can count to five much better than we can to thirty… unlike what happened last night.”

Everyone in general chat giggled over this and it became apparent that the people behind the curtain have a very good sense of humour indeed.

A sense of humor is required to play RIFT.

I’m not a big nitpicker when it comes to games but one thing that had always bothered me in other MMOs was when you’d mount up on a horse or something else and your character’s hands would be suspended in mid-air, holding onto nothing.  This isn’t a big deal and was never detrimental to those other games, but when my High Elf sat atop her horse actually holding the reins, I took notice.  I also enjoyed the way she moved naturally while on horseback instead of sitting like a piece of wood.  While running around if I scrolled in very closely to my elf, I could actually hear her breathing heavily.  Again, this isn’t something that is going to actually affect the gameplay but it was still nice to see bits of realism sprinkled here and there.

At the end of the starting zone I encountered my very first Rift, a giant anomaly that tears through the veil and unleashes powerful monsters that require the help of others to bring down.  Though I only reached level ten in this Beta event, it wasn’t the last Rift I saw either.  There is a tutorial in place that seems unremarkable, especially if you’re a veteran MMO player, but I regretted skipping through some parts of it, especially when it explained how Rifts worked.  I encourage everyone to read through the tutorial at least once even if you think you don’t need to.  Trust me, it’s helpful.

My first Rift encounter was a vital part of the storyline so I won’t give anything away, but I will say that it was impressive.  I had the aid of powerful NPCs with me for this one so it didn’t require working with a group of players (though that would have been fun) and once we took down the boss I was treated to a brief cut scene that explained more of the story.  By this time I also had my third soul – I chose Riftstalker – and was well on my way in Telara.

I heard people say that post starting zone the game gets much, much better and I’m inclined to agree with them.  I was barely at the starter camp for two seconds when I saw text fly on my screen: “Smoke permeates the air.”  Within ten seconds the sky began to turn red with fire and when I looked down at general chat, people were already spamming it with “raid invite please!”  Everyone else knew what was going on, but I was pretty lost.  I saw a bunch of people running in one direction and even though I was only level seven I decided to dash off after them.

While running towards the new threat with the rest of the group I spotted two large tree-like monsters going at it.  When I clicked on one of them I noticed immediately he was an elite just from the trimming around his portrait so I decided not to go any closer to them.  That’s one thing I actually loved about RIFT - it was familiar.  Once in the game I didn’t have to fuss over learning a new set up.  I appreciated being able to take one look at a monster’s portrait and just know that I did not want to engage them alone.  While the forest around them burned these tree monsters fought and a large group of elite fairies circled around them.  While I was interested in what they were doing, there was a greater threat I needed to tend to.

Not all fairies in RIFT are as cute and cuddly as this one.

Goblins were apparently attacking and even though I wasn’t in the raid with the rest of the players I was automatically given the quest to defeat them.  The second the event started, objectives positioned themselves onto my quest tracker.  I looked at the levels of the other players engaging the goblins and noticed that some were level twenty.  I was worried I was under leveled for the event and was ready to wander back to the camp to continue my questing alone.  That’s when I noticed that I was getting experience and my objectives were slowly being completed even though I was hanging out in the corner timidly.  Yes, you CAN get involved in the raids even if you’re level seven and you are welcome to have a good time with everyone else and gain experience.

When the event was over, I made my way back to camp.  While killing wasps for what felt like forever I was interrupted by the sound of a large crack nearby.  Several bolts of lightning flew down around me and when I looked straight above my head, a strange plant-like Rift had formed above me.  Panicked, I started running around like a headless chicken while a very powerful Satyr-like monster attacked me.  Almost immediately, three other people rushed to my aid and the four of us took down the invasion within only a couple of minutes.  Once the last monster was killed, the Rift recoiled and dissipated.

Trust me, you don't want to be sitting directly underneath one of these when it appears.

If you’re a solitary quester who hates being interrupted, RIFT might not be for you.  If you relish the idea of something random happening to you while you’re out leveling, then check this game out.  I personally loved the dynamic environments and the feeling that something exciting could happen at any given moment.  I also loved that the game encourages teamwork, even if only for a few minutes.  I reached the next questing hub/village and it was already under attack by large ogre-like monsters who were pounding at its walls.  Things in this game happen and they happen frequently.  Achievement addicts will also be happy to know that there are plenty of achievements to obtain in RIFT. I love achievements in MMORPGs so this was an instant turn-on for me.

The game also supports several different server rule sets, so if you want to hang out on an roleplaying (RP) server you can.  For the Beta I made my character on an RP server.  I loved being able to create my own class but at the same time it also looks like a recipe for many imbalances in PvP, but only time will tell if this will be a major problem or not.  The biggest bit of criticism I have seen towards RIFT so far has been that it isn’t innovative enough and instead they are just re-inventing the wheel.  While the game isn’t a breath of fresh air, it was fun and I don’t really crave innovation.  TRION Worlds has pleasantly surprised me with their flagship title and I can’t wait until the next Beta event on January 25th.  I’m glad that I’m not alone in this and that there are so many people who are excited about the upcoming release of this MMORPG and just in my few hours of play time it has shown much promise.RIFT: Planes of Telara is set to release on March 1st, 2011.  Head start begins February 24th for those who pre-ordered the game.

This is part 1 of the interview. In transcribing the interview I realized what a mammoth this thing is, but we touch on a lot of interesting subjects including the prospects of playing through The Killing Joke, guild housing and Final Fantasy XIV so I definitely want to share all of that with our readers. In this part we talk about the general atmosphere and goals of the game, and Daubert’s experience from working on Galaxies.

GameNorth (GN): Tell us a bit about DC Universe Online.

Michael Daubert (MD):  The biggest goal is that we want you to look and feel like the hero or villain that you want to be. The nice thing is that when you’re carrying all your loot you can change the way you look every time you log in. [Daubert swaps out an item's appearance] I can swap out [the look of] my helmet and I’m still wearing my epic helmet and getting all the rewards but I can have the character look any way I want.

GN: Yeah, I really like that part.

MD: Have you gotten into Gotham and Metropolis both or?

GN: You know, I accidentally went into Gotham once. I rallied back to HQ and I had never been there so I took the wrong portal and was very confused. [laugh]

MD: That’s the nice part about it – it lets you jump back and forth between Gotham and Metropolis.

GN: Yeah, now that I understand it, it’s pretty cool.

MD: Well, that’s the nice thing too. We don’t have it like other MMOs where this is a villain held city or this is a hero held city. It’s an open environment – PvP and PvE – that lets you explored whatever city you want to be in. One thing we did too is that Gotham is always in the night time and Metropolis is always during the day, so we don’t have the day/night cycle. We did that on purpose. We wanted to capture the feel of what Gotham always is. One thing we learned early on is that Gotham during the day just isn’t fun – you want to have that at night time. A lot of times in comics too, whenever they portray Metropolis it’s always the bright golden daylight of the midmorning or mid-night type, so it always has the glamourous City of Tomorrow type feel to it.

GN: That’s interesting, actually. I hadn’t realized that, but now that you mention it – yeah, it was always day. Speaking of the day/night cycle, are there weather effects?

MD: Oh yeah, it already rains. If you go to the Mr. Freeze area it’ll snow in there. The Scarecrow area has a toxic mist through the air. It’s all about the atmosphere and the atmospheric effects.

GN: I’ve done all the tour missions -

MD: With Booster Gold?

GN: Yeah, with Booster Gold. But only in Metropolis. I wanted to play in Gotham actually, since I’ve just finished Arkham Asylum.

MD: What you said there – Batman: Arkham Asylum is an amazing game, I loved it too and played it twice through. That is Batman’s story. This is all about you creating your story. You’re the next legend of the DC Universe and [it's all about] you writing your legend into the universe itself. It’s funny you bring up Arkham Asylum because the game ended – you’re at the end and you’re like: “Oh I want more! I want more!” and that’s what we’re trying to do here, is to keep that action going and keep that progression. And you’re getting to that level of Batman but it’s no longer Batman’s story; it’s your story in the DC Universe. You start playing games like Batman and people want to see a Green Arrow game like that and so we try to combine the best of the DC Universe in one open world environment. So you almost have all these different games mashed into one. You have your Batman, your Superman plus the villain side. I’m sure when you’re playing through [Arkham Asylum], you’re thinking “how cool would it be to play as the Joker?” You’ll hit that peak at level 30 [in DCUO] and we want you to go, “oh I wonder what the villain side is,” because it’s a whole different storyline and getting to the end. Plus, “I’ve played as a flyer/ice guy – I wonder what it would be like to be the Flash with super speed and I’m going to add fire, nature, or ice to that character.” So it really comes down to living the legend – you being the next legend.

GN: So Alerts are the dungeons, what are the Duos?

MD: The Duos will be the two-person dungeons. Two-people raids type.

GN: The success that World of Warcraft has is partly due to the endgame content of the raids to keep people playing, and arenas too. Is there a raid you can show me?

[Daubert attempts to find a raid, but he does not have them unlocked on his character]

GN: No problem. So how have you guys designed raids or raid rewards? What have you guys learned from doing Everquest to improve the endgame content?

The variety of costumes is one of the best things about DCUO

MD: That’s something I would have the Creative Director walk through. I can’t get too deep into the raiding side of it. Myself, I’ve been with Sony for three years and it was my first time on an MMO [on SW:G]. So of course the very first thing they say is “go play World of Warcraft.” And once you have a level 80 character, go learn what an MMO is all about. Being in the industry for over 17 years and working on every game console you can think of and jumping into an MMO is the biggest thing you can ever work on. This is something so epic that you can’t even wrap your head around. What we’re really trying to do here is to take the best of the MMO side and the best of the action side and merge it together. We want to get the console players who are jumping in here, who are maybe kind of gunshy when you say MMO – [the kind that goes] “Oh, I don’t have 100 hours to go through there and I don’t want to have to mine gold or knit weavings into a cape” and it’s almost like a training. It’s to teach them what the best parts of an MMO are but to keep up the action of the console side of the game. We do know from the past experiences is that the number one thing in an MMO is your endgame. There has to be an endgame when you hit level 30 there has to be something there that was worth your time getting there. Geoff Johns [Superman, Flash] and Marv Wolfman [Blade, The New Teen Titans], who are some of the most prolific comic book writers in history. I mean, they reinvented the way we look at comic books today and they wrote the back story, both the villains’ side and the heroes’ side, to make sure that it’s an epic journey and when you get there, that the end story is there for you. [There are also] the larger PvP raids [and] larger arenas. And you know, in WoW you play as a tank and the next thing you want to do is [you want to] play as a healer. We let you swap out your powers as you’re going along to let you switch those roles as you go through it. Up until level 15 where you really set your role. What we want you to do is it’s not just what role you you’re going to play, but what power you’re going to have – what movement type, what hero or villain you can create – to run those same events and how does that change affect it.

GN: Comparing the two projects [Star Wars: Galaxies and DCUO], which one did you enjoy more?

MD: SW:G still has a large fan base and it’s one of those games where Sony took on a big chunk of creating the first Star Wars MMO – with that experience, we’ve learned a lot. Moving forward, we took that into what the DC Universe was about. I think the number one thing we learned from SW:G is there is nothing more important to our game than the fans. It’s got to be the fans. We spent the first three years making the game that we wanted, and for the last two years it’s about making the game that the fans want. Let’s see how they feel and if it’s what they’re looking for. On top of that, throwing the DC license on there – these fans are die hards, and they will nitpick every single thing you put into this game. “Sorry, in Batman 215 that wouldn’t have happened.” And they’d be absolutely right. We have 70 years of comic books that we have to stay true to so what we really want to do is focus on what the fun part of an MMO action game is, and what is also fun about being a superhero. So what we tried to do when we mixed those two together is to take the best of both worlds and stay true to the license and stay true to the fans of the MMO side.

Look for the next part in the series, which contains some topics related to DC comic books.

The Holy Grail is an item that sometimes takes the form of a cup or a dish that possesses amazing powers.  In the legends, many heroes have attempted to find this powerful item but have failed.  Percival, a knight of King Arthur’s round table was unable to locate the item because he lacked the maturity to find it and before he could locate it again he would have to grow spiritually and mentally.  What does any of this have to do with gaming, you ask?  Only everything.

Unless you’ve been living in a bomb shelter, you are aware that it is now 2011.  With a new year brings new promises of miraculous games that will thrill us and make us go broke.  It’s also a time when we can sit and reflect on what happened in the previous year and learn from any mistakes we might have made.  Call me a slow learner if you want, but I noticed something in 2010 that I was either in denial about or oblivious to until recently: Gamers are serious whiners.  I realize this is a generalization and it probably isn’t a fair assessment because there are so many gamers out there that truly love their hobby (the unhappy people are the most vocal, after all).

The black hole of gamer negativity is not a new thing and it will probably never cease to exist but while checking out the comments section on some of my favourite gaming sites I noticed a common trend: Most gamers are whining because they expect too much.  For example,  a new game is set to launch soon and in the beta test section of the forums the most common complaints revolve around cosmetic or frivolous issues that aren’t directly tied to gameplay, such as cloaks clipping into swords.

“I refuse to play this game because the characters look awkward when they sit and if the cloaks are clipping into swords, forget it.”

When I read that statement, I originally passed it off as a troll and continued reading.  But then I found other threads that were strikingly similar.

“It’s absolutely ridiculous that I can’t give my characters tattoos.  This is 2011, I want more customization.  I’m cancelling my pre-order.”

Wait, this is all wrong. Real life Goblins don't look like this!

Comments like these hurt our hobby and the spirit of gaming.  I’m well aware that games are not cheap and it’s infuriating when you purchase a dud, which is a bigger risk now than it was ten years ago.  I can only recount two times when I truly regretted a game purchase.  The first time was back when I bought Two Worlds despite my friends telling me not to (huge mistake) and when I bought All Points Bulletin back in July (it died very shortly after launch and I only got to play it once).  We’re constantly dissecting games and because of the Internet, it’s easier than ever to put in our two cents on a forum or over Twitter.  At the risk of sounding like your grandpa, back when I only had two gaming magazine subscriptions the only way I knew anything about any game was because of those magazines.  I would read an article about them and base my purchase solely off of that.

In other rare cases, I would choose to buy a game at the store just by looking at the back of the box, reading the description and checking out the screenshots.  Luckily for me, my intuition almost never steered me wrong and I ended up playing games I normally wouldn’t have bothered to check out.  This method of blind-buying almost never works out these days.  When I had very few expectations of a game, that was when I enjoyed it the most.  I didn’t sit on a gaming forum and see a million different posts pointing out every little negative flaw to ruin my joy or perception of it.

I was really glad when I stumbled across a blog post on One of Swords entitled, “Here are Your 2011 Resolutions.”  It’s a short, good read and all of the points made completely echo my feelings.  The first resolution is to “stop acting like everything is the end of the world.”  Let’s go back to the cloak clipping comment for a bit.

Hey, remember these?

If you’ve ever played any video game ever, you know that nothing acts,  moves or looks exactly the same way on the screen as in real life.  It’s just not plausible yet (unless you’re from the future) and we need to stop acting like spoiled children every time we see our dagger poke through our capes a little bit.  It happens and it isn’t the end of the world.  In fact if you’re one of the twelve million subscribers of World of Warcraft, then you see this happen all day long.  It hasn’t affected the game’s success in the least.  The second point in the blog post was that some gamers love hating on gaming more than they like playing games.  How many times have you visited a social networking site and declared your love for a game, only to have some stranger slap you across the face because they hate it and they want to make sure that you realize it’s bad, too? It’s kind of like when you start dating someone new and you’re really enjoying your time with that person and then your friends point out something negative that you didn’t realize before.  The internet is full of cynicism for cynicism’s sake and sometimes we should just shut up and let people like things.

Point number four is my personal favourite and that is “don’t expect perfection.”  Like Percival in search of the Holy Grail, he was never able to find it because of his immaturity.  Perhaps when we do a little growing up ourselves, we’ll realize that there probably is no Holy Grail after all but what we already have is pretty cool, too.  I’m not saying don’t read opinions on the games you buy.  After all, you’re reading this on a gaming website where we provide you with honest reviews and opinions on a near-daily basis.  You should check out the reviews (especially ours), just don’t get too carried away with them.  Reviews are a great referential point so you can assess whether or not the game you’re thinking about buying is worth your time and hard-earned cash.  What isn’t worth your time is getting dragged into the mud with everyone’s sobbing.  Once you can let go of the idea of perfection, that’s when you really start to enjoy the things you do have and stop focusing on the things that may be missing.

I’m guilty of jumping in with the haters from time to time.  That’s why one of my resolutions for 2011 is to try to enjoy gaming the way I used to enjoy it when I was younger.  That doesn’t mean blindly ignoring anything that might be negative, but to at least give new games a chance before shooting them down before I’ve even played them.  I challenge the rest of you to do the same in 2011 too.

I’ve commandeered the column this week in Dana’s absence (you poor souls). Dana discussed many reasons people play MMOs, but I’m going to talk about the aspect of great MMOs that really keep people keep playing: Raiding. Raiding is the process of going through usually lengthy dungeons and defeating all the bosses therein. Raiding takes a large number of people (10 and 25 in World of Warcraft) and the items that the bosses drop get divided using some system that the group has agreed upon beforehand. Specifically, I’m going to focus on the positive things one can learn from being in a semi-serious, competitive raiding guild. I am not proposing that these are things you can only learn in such an environment, but these are things that I picked up or think someone could learn.

In many ways I feel blessed to be part of this particular raiding guild for around three years. We were not hardcore enough that we had to raid too many days or hours and we always kept a mature attitude. Our motto was to get the same amount of content and progression done as other guilds, but in less time. This means that we raided 3 nights a week for a  total of 10 hours while most guilds put in 5 nights and 16 to 20 hours. We were a guild of (mostly) day workers across three time zones (plus one Finnish timezone) so the window for 25 people to get together was small, but this also developed an environment that demanded commitment.

Although our raid leaders were certainly serious about raiding, what was interesting was that it wasn’t a strict system of punishment that installed a culture that expected players to be online and ready with various enchantments, foods, potions before raid time. It was not acceptable to hold twenty-four other people back, and it wasn’t only the leaders that let people know that. Right from the application stage, the public applications were heavily scrutinized by the veterans of the guild, especially those playing the same role as the applicant. We would try to find out if a person knew their stuff and had the right personality to fit in to a responsible, results-oriented atmosphere. This type of environment is precisely the type of environment that a lot of real world companies apply, and the culture of excellence is one that cannot replicated simply from doling out punishments. There is a saying that it takes a village to raise a child, and that just naturally became the mentality for “raising” our raiders. We were even nitpicky with grammar on our forums – we tried to be that professional and make people understand that they were representing the guild. This kind of atmosphere is actually one that I try to reproduce here on GameNorth, and again I am blessed by professionals who aim to enforce the culture as much as I do.

Aside from punctuality, there was also the lesson of practice. We wanted to be competitive while keeping our raiding hours low. This meant a competitive atmosphere for 25 spots and that means practice and self improvement in order to keep your spot. Another way to look at it is that it was like homework. Despite the perceived skillessness of World of Warcraft, which is something even I joke about, there are definitely levels of output and thought process that only the best players can produce. Not everything goes as expected, and raiding at a high level in WoW requires you to pay attention to multiple things at once. There are timing mechanisms and tricks to help you deal the most damage, and since most fights are timed, your group needs to deal a certain amount of damage per second in order to succeed. There are training dummies you can practice on in the game so that you can test out what combinations of gear or attacks will output the most damage. But mostly what I did was research, as there were many people smarter than I am who actually experimented and wrote programs that would model the theoretical best attack rotation or bring up new theories on which stat was better to maximize. Sometimes these theories were not agreed upon and people came up with different results, and every time a patch changed something the process might have to start again. The most dedicated individuals even carried around different equipment on them depending on the nature of the fight and the length of the encounter. I learned this lesson more from Tekken 5 than WoW, but I think many people could be introduced to the concept from this environment.

Then there was planning. Sometimes we would watch someone’s video on the encounter or read someone’s guide to the encounter, and then try the boss. Then, if it was a hard boss, we’d have to go on the forums and discuss what we can do in order to overcome the challenges after the raid. This is a process you’ve most likely experienced with your friends tackling a tough co-op game, such as the secret boss Crawmerax in Borderlands. For some fights, the complexity of the plan, diagrams, and positioning became more like performance art than a game, but the plan also had to be tailored to the abilities of the people involved. There were certain people that just could not be assigned certain tasks and these kinds of evaluations were also very much like a workplace. I was the manager of a software department for a few years and you definitely have to play to the strengths of the employees. You’d also see people develop into better and more reliable players like you do in a workplace, which was always rewarding.

The best thing that I learned from the experience was how to treat people with respect and professionalism in an online environment, though. We were one of the two top guilds on the server, but we never talked down to people and never let our people troll forums or chat channels. We tried not to be jerks to people in other guilds and we did not tolerate our members stealing loot or any inappropriate behaviour of that sort, even when not raiding. I once reprimanded the guild master for insulting people in anger for screwing up during a raid. We were not about childish taunting, and he agreed and apologized. No matter how much people screwed up, it always came back to the goals and results. Fun through results was our game and we somehow got around 30 people to work in and out of game to bring those results.

The figure stops and rests his hand upon the sturdy relic before drawing it out of the loop. More wings begin to beat in unison, more fangs drip with insatiable hunger. With a small flick of his wrist, a long, spiked chain hits the floor with a heavy thud, liberated from the confines of the cross. The wings all halt for a brief second, and there is naught but breathing between the horde and the strong, imposing form of Gabriel Belmont, first of the famous clan.

Then – a battle cry from both sides, the whip chittering in anticipation along the stone floor, and the slaughter begins.

This is the world of Castlevania. I have not seriously played any other Castlevania game, so I suppose I was immune to a lot of the criticism that fell upon this 3D endeavour.  Some would say that makes me unqualified to review this iteration, but I think it enables me to judge it on its independent merits alone. Lords of Shadow is one of the most enjoyable games I’ve played this year. It combines a host of themes and gameplay styles from a number of different titles, but envelops them all in a distinctive style. I have not seen such beautifully crafted landscapes in a long time, and while part of the appeal of it was its linearity (having played little but free roamers for so long), the scope and dedication to the design resonates in the execution.

Gabriel travels through the deep recesses of an ancient city, the titular Castle, bogs, marshes, ruined mountain towns, and what seems to be the dusty ends of creation itself, and it all is beautifully designed and sculpted from the same vision.

Gabriel is an enjoyable character. He is both mired by his conviction to his quest and riddled with self-doubt and agony over the death of his beloved. His quest is to not only defeat the various Lords of Shadow, but also to reincarnate his wife. They recruited convincing vocal talent, including Patrick Stewart as Zobek, a knight errant of the same order as Gabriel, who narrates every level opening, and Robert Carlyle (Trainspotting, The Full Monty) as Gabriel.

I think one of the reasons I found this game so satisfying, aside from the art direction and gameplay, was after all the comparisons my friends kept making to God of War, I enjoyed this experience more than Kratos’s forays into madness. Gabriel is a human character and he hurts and emotes as you go through the game, whereas Kratos just rages all the time nonstop without end. Whereas some would say the combat is stolen from God of War, I would argue that Castlevania did everything God of War did first.

The musical accompaniment is suitably haunting with riveting accelerations during tense boss battles and quiet, contemplative tracks during the many puzzles. The puzzles were especially enjoyable, shifting back and forth between obvious and devious like a pendulum. As you encounter each Lord of Shadow, you discover more and more about the order you belong to, the Guardians of Light, and the intrinsic sense of balance of the world. This follows suit all the way up to the game’s powerful conclusion and intense ending.

The gameplay is laced with an interesting magic concept revolving around light and dark magic, which is activiated by either the left or right shoulder buttons, and gives you the ability to either heal yourself by dealing damage (light side) or simply deal more damage (dark side). There’s no moral compass, it’s just more of a “you must know the dark to see the light” sort of jazz. The game takes a fervent and intense turn when you’re forced to switch back and forth on the fly during later boss battles. I found myself intensely focused on the proceedings, due to the whole split-second response time necessary. The various weapons and abilities you unlock are cool and actually appear on your body as you acquire them, which resolves something that has always bugged me about some games. By the end of the game, you’re decked out in some pretty awesome gear. The only thing I would’ve loved more is if Gabriel looked all harrowed and beat up like Batman did by the end of Arkham Asylum. However, it works within the context of the game, so I didn’t exactly hate that they didn’t do it. The animation is brilliant as well, whether it be in game, or cinematic. The boss kills are always very impressive and satisfying.

One of the best aspects I really have to admire about Castlevania: Lords of Shadow is that the game has a great sense of progression; every aspect of the game ramps up in awesomeness. You start off encountering small titans for certain Shadow of The Colossus-inspired boss battles, then each subsequent battle after that the scale is increased ten fold! The combat starts off simple, then gets steadily harder and more complex as more abilities and flourishes become available. Even the environments start off almost conservative, then as you advance, you’re shifting whole towers around and scaling massive, impossible land masses. The castle that you spend about a third of the game exploring is so massive that it seems to be a whole mountain range, ascending to scrape the sky and plunging deep into the earth.  In the various scrolls you uncover on the corpses of your fallen brothers, you read tidbits of information that help you sink further into the universe, give you bits of information about enemies or puzzles ahead, or even give nods to other great games, such as a “Great ‘Dekuh’ Tree” or “The Cake is a lie” references that litter the corners and forgotten passages of the world.

As I’ve stated before, the concept art behind this game cannot be overlooked for it is simply divine. It is some of the most beautiful and detailed work I’ve ever seen go into a game. Whether it is the simple ink illustrations in your skillbook that animate and show you different combo abilities, the gorgeous, massive, wallpaper-worthy works that are unlocked after various encounters and levels, or the awesome quick storyboards showing the progression of the final kill animation, I adore them all. I wish I could capture each one in a print book because I tend to buy those things the instant they’re offered.

Aside from minor grievances like “I shouldn’t have jumped there,” or the occasional glitch, my main complaint would be the saving bug that affected the game a few months prior, and stopped my play entirely for about a week or so, but has since been remedied by the developers. I had progressed up to the final boss battle when my console froze and abruptly restarted with all of my progress locked away. Another complaint is the locked camera. It encounters issues if you move back and forth in certain areas, or if you push yourself into a corner, which disorients it. Mostly, if you avoid those areas, you tend to be rather well off, especially considering this is one of the best implementations of fixed cameras I’ve seen in a game.

I’ve since beaten the game again and unlocked a number of things past that point, so the save complaint is moot. The length added to the frustration with losing the save game because this is not a short adventure. I was pleasantly surprised that this game took at least 40 hours or so to finish, and that was on medium difficulty. With many of the encounters already being quite a struggle, I can only imagine how difficult the two later levels would become.

Castlevania : Lords of Shadow is a stellar title, and with the hearty dose of artwork to unlock at the end of each level, I was subjected to one of the most engaging, immersive, dark, and beautiful games I’ve ever seen. I recommend this title for anyone looking for a good third-person platformer, a videogame art-nut, or really anyone looking for some good old-fashioned fun, with a new flavour. Castlevania will offer all you need to waste a week away.

*Controller doesn’t actually have bells or whistles.

Analog Sticks

I never had any real complaints about the analog sticks on the original 360 controller, save for the texture. During extended and strenuous gaming sessions, in which my hands would begin to sweat, I often found that my thumbs would begin to slip. This led to inaccuracy and having to readjust my thumb position during gameplay, a split-second distraction that can often lead to death in games like Gears of War or Halo. The analog sticks have little grip nubs, but as I mentioned above, they wear away with heavy use, leaving a slick surface.

Microsoft addressed this problem by changing the texture of the analog sticks to provide more friction. Additionally, they chose to use a more pronounced indent at the top of the analog stick in place of the nubs to give your thumbs a more defined resting place. Overall, I find them much more comfortable to use and they definitely provide more grip. If you love shooters, like me, you’ll definitely appreciate this change.

D-Pad

Microsoft’s most touted feature of the new controller is the redesign of the directional pad, and with good reason. The original d-pad was a circular disk that acted as an eight-way directional input, with a raised cross devoted to the four primary directions. Due to the nature of the disk design, accidental diagonal inputs were common, as were residual inputs, where pressing one direction would sometimes result in another directional input being registered immediately afterwards. Do you know what happens to a COG soldier when they switch to their shotgun as an enemy approaches, only to accidentally switch to their smoke grenade a moment later? They become wall art.

This lack of precision also made playing fighting games on the controller a pain in the butt. Even the most talented of Tekken veterans would have been hard-pressed to pull of an Electric Wind God Fist on the old controller, but what about the new one?

Well, Microsoft decided to give gamers the best of both worlds with a new hybrid d-pad design. The new d-pad can transition between the original disk design (for those that took a liking to it, through some twisted form of peripheral Stockholm Syndrome) and a traditional cross design with a simple twist and click.

While the d-pad still feels loose and springy in disk mode, the cross mode feels much tighter. However, due to the d-pad being noticeably smaller than the cavity in which it resides, it slides around a bit when being used. Despite this movement, my experience with the d-pad in cross mode has been a very positive one. Individual direction inputs, such as choosing a weapon in Gears of War, feel much more deliberate and no longer result in residual inputs. Inputting more complex strings, such as those found in most fighting games, benefited from the accuracy of the improved design as well. I borrowed a copy of Tekken 6 for my Xbox 360 (I usually play my fighting games on the PS3), and with little adjustment, I was pulling off my characters’ most complicated strings and juggles. Definitely an improvement, but in my opinion, this new d-pad design is still inferior to that of the DualShock for fighting games. It is a very good substitute though, and if you don’t own a PS3, it may be your best option.

Buttons

The buttons on the new controller remain the same as those found on the old controller, with the exception of their colour, or lack thereof. Throwing the red, yellow, blue, and green colour scheme out the window, Microsoft has chosen to adopt a monochromatic colour scheme instead. While this change certainly makes the controller look more sleek and modern, and less like a toy, the new colour scheme no longer matches the on-screen tips seen in most games. This isn’t a huge issue for those that already know the controller like the back of their hand, but for those that play less frequently, or for those that aren’t familiar with the console, finding buttons by colour was both quick and helpful.

Summary

The new Xbox 360 controller is a big improvement. The new design is slick and easy on the eyes, the analog sticks provide more grip, and the new d-pad design is very welcome. Hardcore gamers, especially shooter and fighting game aficionados, will get the most out of the controller, but these days, the casual gamers are their own controller anyway. So if you’re in need of a new 360 controller or just want more precision at your fingertips, I’d strongly recommend picking one of these puppies up.

Not only do the winners get $4000 to support their development, but they also get to keep their IP. Ryerson Digital Media Zone will support the development team and the game for up to one year and Game Tree TV will distribute the winning entry. The top six finalists will also get Yummy Interactive’s game licensing software, GameShield.

If you’ve got a game idea, this is the perfect time to dive into the scene. The Toronto scene is quite friendly, and a chance at being mentored is extremely valuable. Even if you’re not looking to enter the competition, you can still participate in the networking sessions and listen to the speakers. Some big names in the industry will be there, including Nathan Vella, CEO of Capybara Games (Critter Crunch, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes) and Howard Donaldson, VP of Studio Operations at Disney Interactive Studios (Epic Mickey, Tron: Evolution). The tickets are cheaper if you’re not competing in the event, so it could be well worth the investment to make some contacts and pick the brains of some of the brightest in the industry. For more pricing information, visit the official website.

Vortex takes place over four days (Jan. 19, Feb. 2, Feb 24, Mar. 30) at 99 Sudbury and the fancy TIFF Bell Lightbox in Toronto. The deadline to register your game into the competition is January 3rd, so act quickly!

In last week’s Keeping It Real, I mentioned how I was into Dark Age of Camelot before moving onto World of Warcraft.  Both are MMORPGs, a now greatly-expanding genre that was once thought to be reserved for the geekiest of gamers.  World of Warcraft has been around since the end of 2004, and though we are moving into 2011, I am still asked on a frequent basis: What’s the appeal of WoW?

One of my alter egos, Skyrixx. Female goblins are the real reason why I play WoW.

I think the better question would be “what is so appealing about MMORPGs?” because World of Warcraft isn’t exactly breaking any moulds.  If anything, World of Warcraft is just another game in a very misunderstood and often hated gaming genre.  Whether you play the original Everquest or Vindictus, you are playing a game that follows a basic formula: create a character, level him or her through quests and dungeons and obtain better gear.  It’s an endless cycle and oftentimes it’s coupled with a $15 monthly subscription fee.  Who could love such a thing?

It’s a good question and one that I wanted to explore myself in this week’s column.  I logged into World of Warcraft to ask my roleplaying guild just why they chose WoW over the plethora of other MMORPGs and what makes it fun for them.  As you would expect I ended up with a mixture of responses, but they all seemed to agree that the appeal was in the game’s quality and population.  One of my guild mates stated: “I personally RP here due to population and quality.  WoW is a very well made game with a responsive community and developers.”

Several of my guild mates mentioned that they preferred the back story and lore in WoW to other games such as Everquest 2 andAion.  That doesn’t exactly explain just why the game has been a cultural phenomenon for years, though.  Many of those who don’t understand the appeal of the game immediately point their fingers at the gameplay itself and denounce it as being stale or boring.  While it might not be exciting for most people to watch their characters stand in place while throwing fireballs at their enemies until they die, the purpose of these games isn’t to play solo but rather make some friends and work as a team.  There’s something to be said about the satisfaction one feels after killing a difficult boss with nine of their buddies on a Thursday evening.  There’s also the Player vs. Player aspect of the game, while other players enjoy theorycrafting, which is doing math and experiments in order to do obtain more output.

Celebrating Christmas in Runes of Magic with my Warden/Warrior.

There are plenty of casual players who only log on for one or two hours at a time at most during the week, and World of Warcraft seems to be the most forgiving MMORPG out of the bunch due to its light difficulty curve.  Let’s look beyond World of Warcraft for a bit though. Back during the days of the original Everquest, there weren’t many MMOs to choose from.  There’s now a buffet of games to pick from and what someone picks is purely a preference according to what they hope to accomplish in the game.  Some are quest based, such as Everquest II and World of Warcraft, whereas others allow you more freedom in what you choose to do, such as EVE Online.

An increasing number of MMORPGs are going in an entirely different direction; in an effort to draw in more console gamers, some developers are incorporating action-style gameplay to the mix.  Games such as Vindictus and DC Universe Online are two prime examples of such a change, and TERA Online promises to add something similar.

If you’re already playing an MMORPG and enjoying yourself, then you probably already realize why so many people appreciate the genre.  If you still can’t wrap your head around the appeal, then here’s a brief breakdown of some of the most attractive aspects in MMORPGs.

Becoming steeped in a fantasy realm

If you have a 9-5 job and work 40 hours a week, chances are things get pretty dull – unless you work on the Deadliest Catch crew.  Many people choose to read fantasy novels by the likes of Tolkien or Terry Pratchett as a form of escapism, but some of us just don’t like to read.

Many gamers will pop a disc into their Xbox 360 and be content for hours, whereas some people just aren’t satisfied with having their destinies set in stone that way.  BioWare has proven time and time again that they aren’t satisfied with the linear gameplay and limited character customization. But even Dragon Age and Mass Effect won’t last forever, even if I’ve put in 134 hours into Dragon Age thus far. Enter the MMORPG, where you pick a class (unless it’s a sandbox, like EVE Online), a faction, a name, a look – everything, and hit the “enter world” button.

Good atmosphere is an integral part of an MMORPG.

There may be a storyline in there somewhere, but for the most part what you do and how you do it is all up to you.  If you’re playing a game like Aion, chances are relatively high that you’re going to be tweaking your character’s look for well over an hour.  And once you’re in whatever world you picked, it acts as a sort of mini-vacation.  I find myself going on hikes throughout Middle Earth in Lord of the Rings Online just for the sheer joy of it, and because the landscapes are beautiful.  It’s about being a part of something massive and seeing things you wouldn’t normally be able to if you were to step outside on your front porch.

They love to play with numbers… lots of them

Those who hate CCP’s  EVE Online have accused it of being “a spreadsheet in space.”  This is a game that is appealing to a niche audience and most of its elements revolve around money and community.  For the EVE lovers, running a virtual business in space is their kind of fun.  For others, it’s boring and unpleasant.  I’ve run into plenty of people who played World of Warcraft just for the auction house.  They chose to spend their time and money figuring out the best ways to control the economy.

There is also theorycrafting, where players number crunch their statistics to get the most out of their characters.  I personally can’t stand math and never will get any pleasure out of playing around with numbers but I understand that these people exist.

Bloodthirsty?  Hate guns?

Some people just really hate first-person shooters but still like to kill things.  Count me among those people who can’t understand why so many people fawn over Black Ops or Halo.  No disrespect to those games, by the way – I can recognize a quality franchise when I see one, even if they aren’t necessarily my cup of tea.  Just like you probably don’t want to worry about collecting gear for your PvP set, I don’t want to be fussed over buying new map packs and shooting people with guns.

Flying in Aion adds an extra layer of intensity to the PvP.

For me, it’s the fact that I don’t want to play anything too realistic.  I loved me some Bioshock and I can get into Global Agenda every now and then, but it comes down to personal preference – a variety of gamers enjoy different varieties of games.

The social aspect

Remove the social aspect from an MMORPG, and you no longer have any real reason to play the game.    There are people who prefer to solo to level cap, but the majority of players enjoy being a part of a community.  Sometimes a community of like-minded individuals just don’t exist out there in their own hometown or city, and the game they’re playing is their only real way of connecting with others.

I think most of us can agree that getting all of your social activity online is not a healthy thing – just look at the people who hang out on Facebook all day long.  I oftentimes wondered to myself if the MMORPGs that I currently play would be fun if they weren’t massive, and I always conclude that it would not.  Multiplayer modes in most games are there in addition to the single player campaign, and when done incorrectly, they feel tacked on. That is not the case with MMOs, as they are built specifically for multiplayer.

A group of friends play some music outside of the Prancing Pony Inn.

They’re just plain addicted

Some people play MMORPGs not for the joy of playing them or even because they have friends playing them, but because they got hooked and now can’t pry themselves away.  This is always a sad reason because these people are usually neglecting the parts of their life that truly matter, such as friends, family or their careers.  The game no longer becomes something for fun or recreation, but becomes almost a matter of necessity, taking precedence over other aspects in their lives.

If I were to sit here and rattle off all of the reasons why someone may play the particular game that they do, this would end up being as long as the dictionary.  While I don’t agree that World of Warcraft will be on top of the market for another 20 years (unless they overhaul the engine entirely), I do think there is something to be said for the number of subscribers they have managed to keep throughout the years.  Obviously there is something likable here, but I don’t buy into the notion that 12 million people couldn’t possibly be wrong, either.  There are a few good reasons why people choose not to heed Blizzard’s call:

1. Monthly fees
2. No time to get invested in an MMO (job, kids, limited play time, school, other games)
3. Fear of addiction

There is always room for improvement no matter the genre, and MMORPGs are no different.  Many are plagued with bugs and glitches and some just have a stale, unintuitive combat system.  If they have the resources available, some developers strive to fix the things that might keep potential new players away. For example, Blizzard revamped their entire world with Cataclysm.  But there’s also the worrisome trend that has been surfacing within the past couple of years: The subscription fee plus cash shop model, such as with Cryptic’s Champions Online store and SOE’s notorious money grabbing that has spurned controversy.  This industry is far from perfect, that’s for sure.

With that said, if you’re curious as to what all the fuss is about I can comfortably give a recommendation to Runes of Magic and Lord of the Rings Online, two outstanding free-to-play MMORPGs that still manage to surprise me.  As a roleplayer myself, I choose to play an array of MMORPGs for the different lore and environments each one provides.  I don’t have friends that live close by, and so getting together for the traditional pen and paper style games just isn’t in the cards for me.  If you play an MMO, what are some of the reasons you play?  If you don’t and have a strong opinion against them, share it in the comments section below!

Another cool thing is that you can customize your character to look any way you want despite the equipment that you’re actually wearing. “The biggest goal is that we want you to look and feel like the hero or villain that you want to be,” said Michael Daubert, Studio Art Director [Star Wars: Galaxies]. “The cool thing about that is that you can change how you look every time you log in.” How it works is that there is a Style menu, and you can customize all the different things that affect the look of your character on that screen. I rocked the military beret when I picked it up, but now I’m back to the old school spandex hood. You can pick up items that unlock different styles, so that you have more freedom as you progress.

I think this guy chose Fire.

Something I didn’t realize until Daubert brought it up was that the day/night cycles that is common in MMOs was omitted in this game, and it was a design choice: “Gotham is always at night time, [and] Metropolis is during the day. We did that on purpose because we wanted to capture the feel of what Gotham always is. And Gotham during the day just isn’t fun. You want to have it at night time. A lot of times in the comics, when they portray Metropolis, it’s always the bright golden daylight… the City of Tomorrow feel.” He added, “seeing Batman during the day – it just didn’t feel right.”

Weather effects are still intact though, and in fact there are some nice little touches. For example, Mr. Freeze’s area will start to snow instead of rain and Scarecrow’s area has a pervasive mist from the fear toxins. The Unreal Engine shines in this respect, and helps the game look great overall. Metropolis feels like Freedom Force and Gotham feels entirely different.

The character creation in the game allows you to select a movement type (Flying/Acrobatic/Super Speed), a main power type such as fire and ice (this is basically your class), and a mentor (gadgetry/super powers/magic) that determines the faction you start with and the gear you buy from the vendors, as well as your starting city. The customization of your appearance is not as in depth as some other offerings, but you can choose your body size as well as your starting costume.

As with any new MMO, getting oriented can be quite difficult. In order to help players explore and to give background on the many areas of the game, DCUO provides a chain of quests, narrated by the silly Booster Gold, that basically ask you to tour the cities, and even the headquarters. In addition, there are these neat little timed races that help you get oriented with your movement mode, and eventually master it. They are different depending on your movement type and are meant as something to do while you wait for an Alert (dungeon) or Player versus Player (PvP) battle to pop, but I enjoyed them so much that I’ve just been racing through them (pun optional) to get the Platinum rating on each one.

The variety of costumes is one of the best things about DCUO

The game is tailored to the console players, and SOE confirms that the PS3 is their primary target. Since the game only has one build that works both on the PS3 and PC, there are several design choices that are clearly influenced by the players who will be using controllers as opposed to keyboards. “We want to get the console players who are jumping in here who may be a little gun shy when they hear about an MMO… it’s almost like training. It’s teaching them what the best parts of an MMO are but still keeping that fast paced action,” explains Daubert. To that end, you won’t find any tradeskills or crafting in the game. In addition, you can only have 6 active powers on your action bar at once. This is probably due to the controller having limited buttons and is something I disliked about Guild Wars, but you can try to build your skills around it a little bit in order to avoid having too many active skills that aren’t being used.

Not all the console influence is bad, however. There are these information hotspots littered throughout the cities and if you collect all the ones in an area, you get a reward. The whole thing feels a lot more like something you’d see from Batman: Arkham Asylum than World of Warcraft.

On the PvP side, there are two different options: Play as your own character, or play as one of the Legends, such as Batman or Harley Quinn. The one map I played on was a Team Fortress 2 style mode, where each team tries to control different points on the map in order to score points. More maps are unlocked as you level. The co-operative Player versus Environment (PvE) involves Alerts and end game Raids, which involve such iconic locations as the Batcave. I am not high enough level to access the Raids, but the Alerts that I’ve done seem a bit chaotic. Whereas World of Warcraft groups are fairly co-ordinated affairs, DCUO allows your team to split up and still do okay.

The game has been fun enough so far that I can definitely recommend a trial – especially for those curious about MMOs but are afraid that they will become highly addictive. DC Universe is very friendly to casual play and doesn’t involve farming for materials of any kind. Plus, the gameplay resembles your average action game more than World of Warcraft. PSN Plus members can download this Beta for free right now from the PSN Store, and PC players can pre-order a copy in order to get into the Beta. Have you tried DCUO? Show us your character in the comments or let us know what you think of it! Also, keep an eye out for our interview with Michael Daubert later this week.

Every year, the denizens of Middle Earth celebrate something called the Yule Festival, which is taking place right now.  This year is a bit different and there is now an entire new zone just for the holiday called Frostbluff.  Within Frostbluff is a town called Winter-Home.  To get to Winter-Home you must speak to a stable master in any of the major cities/hub areas, such as Bree.  Getting to and from Winter-Home is easy and the quests are intended for those level 10 and higher.  Once you arrive at Winter-Home, you will be prompted to speak to the mayor, Winston Goodnough.

Welcome to Frostbluff, the happiest place in Middle Earth.

The mayor will then tell you to speak to his wife, who is standing right next to him.  She will then give you a spiel about the festivities, and then send you along to Cecil Voller in the snowball field.  If you pull up your map, the snowball field is very easy to spot and you should have no trouble finding it.  If this seems a little bit on the boring side, that’s because it is.  With the exception of the theatre, there is nothing especially remarkable about the Winter-Home quests; you’ll be looting things and running from one end of town to the other, which doesn’t make for a very exciting experience but does yield some pretty interesting rewards.

Once you’ve spoken to Cecil, she’ll tell you to go speak to “someone.”  Kind of vague, huh?  The person you’re looking for is standing very close to where the mayor is, and she is a servant.  You’ll soon realize that talking to the servant was a complete waste of time because she gives you absolutely no information and sends you off to speak with Guard Kember, who is standing right near the stable master at the entrance to Winter-Home.  He’ll send you off to speak with the hobbit announcer, who is standing right in front of the theatre.  The hobbit then sends you off to speak with Ona Kay, the eating-contest announcer.

The new snowball field in Frostbluff, where you can pelt your friends.

After you’ve spoken to Ona, you notice that there’s a beggar standing not too far away from where you are.  Speaking to him unravels a bit of the story here in Winter-Home and continues the quest chain.  Apparently the mayor is a jerk and is all about keeping up appearances even at the expense of his own people.  You learn that the beggars in town aren’t pleased with the mayor and the Yule Festival isn’t the sugary-sweet pleasant festival that he’ll have you believe.  Once you’re done talking to the beggar (who will rudely shoo you off anyway), it’s time to re-visit the mayor to end the quest chain.

You’re now free to explore Winter’s Home and do the quests in any order you please to collect Frostbluff coins.  These coins are a new form of currency that are spent on goods in Winter-Home.  You can trade your coins with Jefferey Bloomer, who is standing in the same area as the mayor (and is most likely the guy who has the crowd of people standing around him).  The rewards are nothing to get too excited about, as all of the gear available are cosmetic only.  However, if you are hoping for more household items and decorations, then you’re in luck.  There’s a batch of all new snowmen to adorn your front lawns with.

Elf to snowman size comparison.

These rewards are excellent for roleplayers who want to update their winter wardrobe:

Snow-Dusted Travelling Set – 12 coins a piece

Yule hoodless cloak – 12 coins

Yule Tunic and Pants – 12 coins

Yule hooded cloak – 12 coins

Yule Scarf – 12 coins

Yule Stocking Cap – 12 coins

Unhappy Snowman – 10 coins

Brown-Capped Snowman – 10 coins

Snowman with mittens – 10 coins

Snowman with a Staff – 10 coins

Top Hat Snowman – 10 coins

Wizard’s Hat Snowman – 10 coins

Bald Snowman – 10 coins

Yule Flag – 10 coins

Yule Banner – 10 coins

Perfect snowballs (3) – 1 coin

The Biggest Stomach of Them All!

Starting point: Ona Kay (south of the mayor)

Repeatable:  Yes, every six minutes

Rewards: 13 Frostbluff coins (after completing all five parts)

Winter-Home, a true winter wonderland.

The object of the game is to eat the most food.  Personally, I don’t think hobbits should be allowed to enter as this would cause serious balance issues to the contest, but maybe you’re an elf with a bottomless stomach and feel as though you can take them on.  Good luck with that.

This quest chain is broken down into five parts.  During part one you are not on a timer, so don’t worry about out-eating anyone just yet.  Save that gusto for part two.  The food on the table includes eggs, berries, pies, breads and mushrooms.  It’s in your best interests to stick to only eating eggs, berries and mushrooms as they won’t give you a speed decrease like the pies and bread will.  Not being slowed down during an eating contest is the key to success here, so choose your food carefully.  Occasionally, a suspicious drink will spawn on the table.  If you’re feeling lucky, drink it.  But be warned: The drink has a chance of causing you a 60% speed decrease for 20 seconds.  The drink can also remove all current speed debuffs.

The eating contest is the quest chain that yields the most Frostbluff coins during the festival, so go for it even if you’re like me and loathe timers.

Unwilling Firewood

Starting point:  Mabel Mitford

Repeatable:  Yes

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Now, if you were to come to me and complain that every single time you tried to chop some firewood, the tree punched you in the face, I would tell you a couple things:

1) You’re insane.

2) Stop trying to chop down Ents.  They don’t appreciate it.

Really, lady?!  You live in Middle Earth!  When a tree is punching you in the face and causing you bodily harm, that’s a clear sign that you aren’t hacking away at a tree at all but a sentient being.  The mayor wants the best wood-burning firewood available and he isn’t about to settle for anything less, but the “trees” are fighting back.  They aren’t trees at all, but rather tree-trolls and so Mabel Mitford wants you to go collect it for her.  The tree-trolls are located in the north-east region on your map and are easy to find lumbering about (haha, a pun!).

The tree-trolls are marked as “grouchy trees” (go figure, they’re walking around and people still think they’re trees).  Collect 10 pieces of firewood and head back to Mabel Mitford in Winter-Home for your reward.

What do you mean this isn't a tree?

Tidying Up

Starting point: Basil Wyndham

Repeatable:  Yes

Rewards:  4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Basil is extremely lazy.  He didn’t deliver the kegs he was supposed to, and now he’s refusing to clean up the dirty dishes and garbage.  This guy obviously doesn’t like money or want a job.  The mayor doesn’t want the garbage to be seen by the festival patrons, so Basil decides he’s going to make you do it.  This confuses me because um, hello?  I’m a festival patron, too!  I didn’t come here to clean up after everyone else!  Fortunately this task is easy, quick, and yields coins.  Time to roll up those sleeves and get a little dirty.

The piles of garbage, spills and leftover food can be found scattered about on tables in Winter-Home and are relatively easy to spot.

Empty Keg Emergency

Starting point: Basil Wyndham

Repeatable:  Yes

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Basil is drunk and passed out, so he didn’t deliver the kegs he was supposed to.  The town is going dry and that just won’t do during a festival, so it’s up to you to save the day.  Pick up fresh kegs near the servant’s oven in Winter-Home and take them to the festival square, but watch out for the town guards!  You don’t want them to see you, even though you’re doing everyone a favor and doing Basil’s job.  It doesn’t make much sense, but it’s an entertaining quest.

Moving Them Off

Starting point: Guard Kember

Repeatable: Yes

The mayor dislikes the beggars hanging around the streets in Winter-Home and Guard Kember wants you to shoo them away.  Your task is to find each beggar in Winter-Home and tell him he has to go somewhere else in order to obtain four coins.  Is depriving these people of warmth and shelter really worth it?  Each of the beggars are easy to find, but sometimes you’ll have to wait a few seconds for them to respawn if someone has already recently visited them.  They will appear on your mini-map as little golden rings, which makes them easy to find.

A Charitable Spirit

Starting point:  Daley Utteridge

Rewards: -10 Frostbluff coins and a feeling of satisfaction (or remorse)

Repeatable: Yes, but why would you want to do this more than once?

If you felt bad for kicking the beggars off the streets earlier, you’ll be given a redemption quest from Daley Utteridge.  Feel free to give up 10 of your Frostbluff coins to those you shooed away.  It may make you feel better, but you won’t gain anything from it and wouldn’t you rather spend your coins on cool snowmen decorations instead?  I’m apparently a bad person.

Stuffing the Stuffed

Starting point: Mabel Mitford

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Repeatable: Yes

Does Mabel even do anything around Winter-Home, or does she just make everyone else run her errands for her?  Winter-Home is full of lazy people, with the exception of the hard-working beggars. How does that even make sense?  For this quest you’ll need to run around and collect the food that is used during the eating contest.  You’ll need to collect mushrooms, eggs, berries and bread.  The eggs are found around the chicken coops, which are northeast of Winter-Home.  The mushrooms can be gathered from the mushroom tent near the lake, to the far east outside of Winter-Home.  Berries can be picked from the bushes growing anywhere out in the wild.  Remember the servant’s oven?  That’s where you’ll need to head in order to make the bread which is located in the northwest section of Winter-Home.

The mushroom tent

The chicken coop aptly named "Cluckland"

Making Mischief

Starting point: Gareth Rust

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Repeatable: Yes

Gareth tells you that there is a pile of fireworks sitting in the festival square that are supposed to go off at a very specific time.  Tampering with the fireworks will greatly displease the mayor and earn you Gareth’s respect.  What’s more, when you set off the fireworks, the festival patrons will become distracted and you’ll be able to steal their Frostbluff coins.  Once you’ve pilfered eight coins, head back to Gareth who will spread half of the coins to the beggars and give you the rest to enjoy.

The Frostbluff Theatre

Starting point: Theatre Announcer (located just outside of the theatre)

Rewards: 4 Frostbluff coins and 90 copper

Repetable: Yes

This is definitely my favourite new addition to the Yule Festival quests.  You will be given the opportunity to “review” the play that is showing in the Winter-Home theatre and earn some festival coins.  I’ve never experienced anything quite like this in an MMO before;  if you are a member of the audience you will be given the chance to become a part of the show and may be randomly selected to become an actor.  If you are AFK,  you will not be chosen.  Once on stage you will be given cues on when to act.  In order to act, you can use a LOTRO-supported emote.  If you’re in the audience you can purchase rotten tomatoes and flower petals from a hobbit near the front entrance.  Throw the tomatoes and the flowers at the actors on stage to show your appreciation (or lack thereof) when a cue appears on the screen.

I played the role of Gandalf. I was typecast, since I was the only elf in the play and therefore the tallest of the bunch.

When I was chosen to perform, I played the role of the villain.  I netted myself 10 turbine points in total by the end of the show, which can be used in the LOTRO store.  I also walked away with two new titles, “Star of the Show” and “Villain.”  I suspect that other titles are available to unlock depending on which role you play and how well you perform.  This was a very fun new feature and I encourage everyone to give it a go at least once!

Once you have completed all of the Winter-Home quests, two new quests will appear.  You can only complete one of the two hidden quests and which one you choose is entirely up to you (siding with the beggars or siding with the mayor).  If the new holiday zone just isn’t your thing, fret not.  The regular Yule Festival quests are still there and yield the same rewards as last year, and if you’re pressed for time but don’t mind spending a bit of money in the shop you can buy yourself a Yule Festival horse.

Old version of the Yule Festival horse, now available in the LOTRO Store

New version of the Yule Festival horse, not available in the LOTRO store.