October is going to be difficult for me.  Three games (all, strangely, beginning with the letter "F") are conspiring to turn my head into a Scanners reference.  Fable 2 is out October 21st.  So is Far Cry 2.  And Fallout 3 is out seven days later.  Bollocks!  And money isn't the problem.  Unless you consider the fact that time is money.  Then yeah, money is a big freaking problem.

What a problem to have, I know.  Too many good games on the calendar in the next few months.  Not like this year's that far removed from any other, so I'm trying not to complain too loudly.  2007 was The Best Year Ever^TM in the eyes of so many critics.  And while everyone seems burnt on the whole discussion -- not even wanting to touch the argument whether 2008 is even better (it is) -- I know that I can at least get a solid month out of Spore before my Triple-F game series grabs me by the wrists and, like your brother used to do to you, start slapping you around with your own hands.  ("Why you hittin' yourself, Randy?  Why you hittin' yourself?")

But after messing around with the Spore Creature Creator all afternoon in preparation for Spore's September 7th launch, I think I've come up with the race that's going to populate my seas, savannahs, cities, and outer spaces.  And, with a little luck, somebody else's too, if they like and download the design.  Meet the Minohorse:

Nope, he has no legs.  Since the Creature Creator can animate the Minohorse's movements like a snake, he can amble about just fine though, thank you very much.  And the ram horns are certifiably cool in my personal estimation, while lending a tentacle-fetishized-looking branch to his ancestry.  I had more decorative plates running up his chest and over his shoulders trying to simulate Byzantine armor, but I removed them since that ended up looking like he was wearing a blocky, rectangular bra.  Relegating that plated look to his stomach, waist, and wrists proved sufficient.  I painted him with the shiny, scaley, purply skin in order to hint at a sea-going gene somewhere in the mix, and because purple was a leftover sentiment from wanting to give him a vaguely Roman feel of royalty.  I also stuck him with oversized hands, a too-large head, and not-so-scary eyes so that other Spore players hopefully won't find the Minohorse so intimidating that they won't invite him into their world.  He's herbivorous, by the way, so you'll only know him by the trail of munched fruits and veggies.

I have no singular, curatorial narrative to tie this player journal together.  I’ve just been enjoying a steady immigration of memorable moments within The Lord of the Rings Online, some of them loud, some of them soft, all of them keeping me away from the keyboard during this 14-day trial period of Middle-earth baptism.  I’m no power-leveler, sir.  My absorbency levels are high but my movements are deliberate, and I’ve kept my character, Lore-master Sayer of Gondor, moving at a walking pace (literally) through the valley of Archet.

These are a few cemented experiences in my mind, and I’m drawing these off the top of my head; no fact-checking, no reworking my way through them in-game, and with frighteningly little knowledge of Tolkein’s world beyond The Hobbit and a few movies filmed in New Zealand.  (So if I get some details wrong, I apologize now.)  And while these experiences may not be profound, per se, they’ve stirred me to recall what I loved so much about MMOs in the first place, especially after I’ve chewed up and spat out so many betas and free trials and full retail purchases along this jaded brick road.

- I recall standing at the top of Bronwe’s Folly after rigorous flights of stairs bringing it to the treetop heights.  The climb was obviously created as a purposeful reminder of the process to get closer to a holy creator.  But at the top of Bronwe’s Folly, I felt nothing but a sense of claustrophobia from the tightening pillars, no sense of security from its crumbling ledge, and no explanation for its seven-pointed stars.  I left, feeling no need to return.

- I recall the planked, uncovered bridge leading up to the hunter’s lodge on the east side of the lake.  The presence of more dead animals than they could skin brought small whirlwinds of flies to circle above the carcasses.

- I recall taking a back entryway into Blackwold’s Roost, another set of Herculean ruins which further betrayed a greater importance the valley of Archet must have once held for a bygone people.  I remember losing all morale in there, twice, fighting off increasing numbers of brigands, knowing that the right solution was to form a fellowship with other players, and never attempting to do so.

- I recall burying the shepherd after the assault on Archet; putting his bloodied body into the ground, as his equally bloodied flock lie strewn and dead about his brown and green hillock.

- I recall walking, walking, walking the roads, fending off aggressive wolves, boars, and spiders, until I grew in strength and knowledge until even those wild woodland creatures learned my scent and kept away.

- I recall another player, who’d named his character after a Star Wars theme, running in circles around me, never taunting me, but exasperating his boredom by killing off creatures that I first engaged in combat.  Yet we never exchanged any words.

  - I recall two other players who never spoke to me, but walked alongside me from the town of Combe, up and across to the spider-rank fields of a working farm.  One held a banner.  The other continuously jaunted one or two steps ahead of me to make him look like a default leader.  They too never spoke to me, despite my questions, as we walked the roads.

- And I recall seeing the town of Archet, burned down to the foundation in some areas, still trudging with life as vendors, trainers, watchmen, and citizens continued their daily toils.  Some maintained hope while others gave in to exhaustion and bewilderment, but I let Archet go.  I was only a refugee myself, and I allowed that town to slip my grasp.  Seeing it blackened with charcoal affirmed a need to move on, when normally I would have created a family tie with the town.

So this is where my gaming heart now lies.  I’ll admit that my commitment-phobic tendencies with MMOs may very well kick in at any moment.  It usually happens somewhere around the 21-day mark, as the overly-practical side of me realizes that I have to end things now, or pay the subscription fee.  But this could be different.  And for everyone it’s different.  But this one could be the one for me.

[Having been away since beta, Randy is playing through a 14-day free trial of The Lord of the Rings Online.  He tends to be impressed by the little things.]

 

Continuing my wanderings through the great halls of Gen Con, I found my way to the Entropia Universe booth.  Here’s an MMO that takes a rather unique stance on a subject that most multiplayer games frown upon: farming virtual stuff for real money.  In fact, Entropia Universe embraces this “pay for playing” mechanic enough that players can (theoretically, at least) never spend a single real-world cent to while away countless hours in the game world, and they may even come out ahead in real-world dollars.  I have to admit, it sounds intriguing.

So how do they do it?  First, there’s no fee at all for playing.  Players can download the client and jump right in, joining forces with others to colonize the fictional frontier planet.  Second, the idea of “free” is a bit of a misnomer.  Sure, players don’t absolutely have to spend real-world money (which is converted to in-game currency at a 1 to 10 exchange), but if they want the coolest toys, they’ll most likely want to make some sort of investment.  Now, that investment can be real-world cash, or lots and lots of game time.  Entropia Universe is a game about farming stuff—either hunting the local fauna for valuable prizes, mining for minerals, or just running odd jobs for other players for a bit of in-game cash. 

Part of what seems intriguing about Entropia Universe is the thought of these economies springing up in game.  I saw instances where players would team up to gather resources—PC miners would hire PC bodyguards to fend off the local wildlife while they gathered valuable goodies from the ground.  One of the guys at the demo decided he wanted to be in in-game barber, so he kitted himself out with the virtual tools necessary to coif his customers.  After a while, he became bored with this, and he sold his barber’s tools for a tidy little real-world sum.

Entropia Universe has an active in-game clearing house, where players can sell their virtual goods for virtual or real-world cash.  There is also a very active auction/market in place, where players can expect to get much better deals for all their labors.  In addition, should players finally wish to leave the game, they can actually sell off their personal character skill increases (something called “chipping out”, I believe).  I don’t really understand all the particulars needed to maintain liquid real-world assets or all the legal hoops that need to be jumped in order to carry these transactions out, but Entropia Universe has been going for a little while now and there seems to be a fairly solid player base, and subsequently an interesting study on economics.

As for the game itself, it looked and played much like a run-of-the-mill MMO.  There was talk that the game would soon be receiving a face lift and adopting the Crysis II engine, so players will have a bit more to ogle as they go about their virtual-world jobs.

Honestly, this all smacks of a bit too much work for my play time, but I know there are folks out there that are thrilled to enter these virtual economies and set themselves up as merchant princes, mercenary hunters, or daring prospectors.  And you really can’t beat the price. 

Check out www.entropiauniverse.com for more details. 

 

Who knew that The Lord of the Rings Online propagated Barack Obama’s campaign of Hope?

Because it would be in a dismal Blackwold Camp in LOTRO that Sayer of Gondor would encounter a creature that would force him to utterly abandon all hope.  And it would be the first time that I would witness Hope and Dread serving as prominent gameplay mechanics in an MMO. 

Sure, by the numbers, diminishing or bolstering Hope and Dread is nothing more than “crowd control.”  It’s “buffing” and “debuffing” with a high-concept metaphor driving it.  The winter-crackled trees, man-sized cages, and various torture devices scattered around Blackwold Camp could conjure enough Dread on their own without the added benefit of having one of the Nazgul -- a Black Rider -- showing up in the prison camp’s courtyard.  Sayer, my freshly-minted Lore-master, whose greatest feat of “spellcasting” involved lighting pinecones on fire and hurling them Nolan Ryan-style at onrushing attackers, was tousled into this mess through a fit of misfortune.

Nevertheless, I’m not a whiner about what got me in here, since a hooded Ranger by the name of Amdir is breaking me out.  Tonight.  Now.  But not before he tasks me with freeing two other prisoners also in the camp:  Both are Hobbits, and one of them has the further misfortune (in this case) of having “Baggins” in his last name.  And that’s what drew the Black Rider to the Blackwold Camp.  He was promised a Baggins.

Before Sayer even saw the Black Rider, he felt its presence.  The lidless Eye of Sauron flashed almost-subliminally across the screen.  A pulse.  An uncertainty.  And then he rounded the corner and saw the Nazgul, mounted and fearsome, preparing to strike down Amdir, the Ranger that had sprung my escape.

The edges of Sayer’s vision were scraped with the fiery iris of Mordor.  The screen pulsed again, vision blurred, and the colors around Sayer began to drain into muddy, monochromatic grays.  It was looking like Lord of the Gears of War.  My mini-map in the upper right-hand corner was now completely replaced by the burning eyeball.  My Hope/Dread Indicator readings were dropping fast.  My Dread was pumped up to level eight, which I’m guessing is somewhere around DEFCON 1 as far as emergency alarms going off are concerned.  The indicator also read “Terror has seized you.  The fear of defeat seizes your heart often, causing you to cower.”  To further drive the point home, a thumbnail icon was flashing under my health bar indicating “Dread -- Your heart is heavy in the face of such evil.”

And indeed my hero, Lore-master Sayer of Gondor, was no paragon of heroism at that point.  He was ducking to the side, crumpled, holding his hands over his face, wanting nothing more than to run.

So I made him run.

Back the way he came and towards the far, roundabout side of the Blackwold Camp.  The Nazgul maybe 100 yards back now, out of sight, but not yet out of mind.  Still, Sayer’s maximum morale slowly raised from the 80% cap that Dread placed on him.  His ‘effective heals,’ which had been reduced to 84% (a bad thing), crept back towards 100%.  And the increased ‘damage received’ percentage (another bad thing) came back down from their elevated 112% levels.  It was like Sayer’s systolic and diastolic blood pressure was crawling back to within acceptable measurements.

And then, eventually, Hope and Dread had found their zen-sand-garden balance once more.

Conversely to the above scenario, being around benevolent NPCs, like Gandalf the Grey, will make Hope rise, diminishing Dread.  So when an NPC like Barack Obama comes around touting the “Yes we can!” of his hope campaign, I have to ask from a completely neutral standpoint:  Is he borrowing gameplay mechanics from developer Turbine’s Lord of the Rings Online? 

 [Having been away since beta, Randy is playing through a 14-day free trial of The Lord of the Rings Online.  Barack Obama did not approve this uninspired message of hope.]

 

You can’t judge a book by its cover, but they never said anything about games. Which is good because with Rick Nash on the cover of NHL 2k9, I’m buying some version of it no matter what. But I digress, as this is supposed to be about my impressions of the game, not my man crush of the player who could be the MVP of the 08-09 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The intro: The animation sequences and voiceover work are very nice, as are the video segments overlaid onto the ice during the pre-game.

Game play Graphics/Animations: The players almost have a bit of a cell-shaded quality to them, as if Visual Concepts (the games developer) said “let’s remind everyone this is a video game and not a hockey simulation”. I’m not sure if I like the way they’re drawn or not yet. The skating, shooting, stick-blocking, and goalie animations are particularly nice, but the contact animations (anytime a player hits the boards or another player) seem lacking. Maybe they weren’t done when they finished coding the demo, but right now it looks every time players make contact that they’re both going to apologize and say they didn’t see each other coming, because that’s how it looks. Also, you can’t really tell the difference between the relative sizes of players. Granter, neither Pittsburgh nor Detroit (the only two teams in the demo) are what you would call bigger teams, so maybe when Boston’s Zdeno Chara is on screen there will be a noticeable difference.

Controls: With the obvious success of EA’s skill stick addition to the NHL 200X franchise, it was only a matter of time before 2k got on board.  Unfortunately, 2k has chosen the name “Pro Stick Evolution” for the new control setup that uses the left analog to control player movement, and the right analog to control the stick. I know they had to avoid copyrights, but that’s not the world’s best name. The nice thing about it is that it works really well, so I can live with the name. Passing, shooting, blocking, dekeing, and the rest of the standard hockey game moves work as expected on either the new or original controls. The hybrid control set wasn’t to my liking, but some may find it helpful in transitioning from the old to the new control systems.

AI: I know this is just a demo, but I’m a bit concerned about the defensive AI in this game. I should not be able to skate right up the middle into the high slot and shoot on the goalie without one or both defenders moving in to take me out. Maybe they have the defense dumbed down so players can learn how to shoot more easily, but from what I’ve seen so far, the games idea of defense is to have every player on the ice cram themselves into the very front of the goal crease and try to get the puck. I’ll be hoping this is just a basic subset of the AI that was still being completed. It’s a short demo, so it’s hard to see how much effect things like players getting tired, injuries, and penalties will have on the gaming experience.

Fun factor: The demo has a pretty short pickup time, and with the basic control set, I was able to start winning regularly against the AI opponent after the 3^rd game.  Additionally there is a special move modifier button that advanced players will want to try out.

Conclusion: The game looks promising, but I’ll want to take the full version for a spin on my Xbox 360 before I can give a definitive answer to the age old question: EA or 2k? One thing’s for sure; I’m going to give the Wii version of NHL 2k9 a try before I make my final decision. Hockey sticks are maybe the second best usage for the Wii Remote (behind lightsabres, and tied with golf clubs), and everyone I know who plays the NHL franchises has been waiting anxiously for a Wii version. Hopefully, NHL 2k9 will live up to its early promise.

I managed to check out several titles geared for the younger crowd this year, starting with Freaky Creatures, an action-figure/video game hybrid targeting an audience of 6-14 years of age.

Back in my day, we had to imagine our toys into battle, supplying sound effects and cool visuals with nothing but our minds. Freaky Creatures is looking to change that, allowing kids to take their action figures online, kit them out with some individual powers and features, and then duke it out with opponents across the globe.

What kids will get initially is a pack of two action figure monsters, which are by themselves some pretty cool toys. However, also included in the starter pack is a flash drive containing the electronic game portion of the product. With this, kids get an online avatar of their action figure. Once they’ve uploaded themselves, players can customize their monsters with a nice selection of weapons, special attacks, and powers. They can also set up each monster’s lair, which really doesn’t have much in-game function, but it allows the kids some nice ways to individualize the monsters.

The meat of Freaky Creatures, of course, is the battle. Players can take their customized monsters and challenge other players’ monsters in a one-on-one battle. There’s not really a lot of depth to the fight, it’s just matter of choosing a target body part with which to attack, while the opponent does the same. A sort of “rock-paper-scissors” mechanic is in play, so one player’s head attack might beat the opponent’s tail swipe, but might be crushed by that left hook. After each player chooses an attack, the monsters enter a round of combat complete with some nifty visuals, and damage is dealt. After a monster’s health is depleted, it goes to sleep (no death here), and a winner is declared.

As monsters do battle, they gain experience with which they open up new abilities and weapons to further customize themselves. Again, there’s not a terribly deep system in place, but I could see myself having some fun with it back in the halcyon days of my youth.

Because Freaky Creatures specifically targets the younger crowd, there will be careful monitoring of all chat-rooms, battles, and other online activities to keep things safe for the monsterific mayhem.

Freaky Creatures should be rolling out in a month or so, with a 2-monster starter pack launching the system. Following this are some single-monster boosters, adding more monsters (and greater variety) to the mix. It could be cool fun for the young ones, but we’ll have to see if the simplistic fighting mechanic and online world can draw interest away from the much deeper online alternatives.

My first stop during this year’s Gen Con was The Continuum, a recently-released strategy  title that is heavily influenced by some of the more popular tabletop miniatures wargames.  Since it’s a wholly-electronic game, though, The Continuum is able to get much, much deeper than most tabletop skirmishers, something die-hard number crunchers are bound to eat up.

As a bonus, The Continuum is completely web-based.  This means there’s no lengthy download or continuous stream of patches.  Just log in, grab a starter pack and perhaps a few boosters, and begin building an army.  The Continuum is a collectable game, meaning players buy randomized boosters of units to increase their forces, although some of the top players on the leaderboards have managed some respectable achievements without purchasing a single booster.  Still, without a monthly fee, buying a few unit packs here and there can still be cheaper than most MMOs.

The game itself feels much like a tabletop wargame, which is a good thing.  Players choose a point total to determine the relative size of the forces they’re fielding, organize their units into squads and armies, and find a challenger.  There seemed to be quite a goodly amount of opponents to choose from, from all over the world, which is an impressive feat given the game has only recently launched.  An incredibly detailed matchmaking system is in place to insure players know exactly who they’re up against.

As armies battle, the units gain experience, allowing them to level up and upgrade their abilities for future fights.  Common units, while limited in their upgrade selection, still have an impressive amount of customizability.  Rare units, in comparison, have oodles of choices, allowing players to have incredibly individualized armies at their disposal.  In fact, there are tons of numbers and abilities to manage in The Continuum, and each and every one of them are right upfront for display.  Hard-core gamers will rejoice, but the casual gamer might be a little put off. 

There also seemed to be a very strong fan base at this point in the game’s early life, which the developers are embracing.  Although still early, if this level of fan and developer cooperation continues, The Continuum will be a great fit for dedicated strategy gamers, provided they enjoy the collectable-style game. 

 

Check out www.thecontinuum.com for more details.

My lovely wife, Grace, is tearing into an eight-pack of Crayola Twistables Crayons as I write this.  ("No sharpening so twist up the fun!")  Laying atop her crossed legs is a wirebound notebook of 4x4 quidrilled ruled graph paper, and she's about five or six pages in already.

She's drawing garden floorplans.  And I'm jealous.

Not because I want to repeatedly draw out the template to our yard of fruits-and-vegetables-and-wildflowers-yet-to-be myself (complete with RV parking, concrete slab for a back patio, and ambiguous un-fenced border with our neighbor), but because it's been well over a decade since a video game has even remotely required me to draw any maps for myself.  It had to have been King's Quest V (or maybe it was VI), as I seem to remember feverish frustration beading sweat on my forehead while I moseyed a desert wasteland in the West. 

Perhaps that's not the best example, as my "map" -- which was nothing more than a series of loosely-labeled rectangles depicting the number of screens I'd traveled up, down, left, and right -- was a tool borne of contempt. I was happy once I'd graphed out the look-alike screens, but I was mad (madmadmad) that I hadn't thought of it earlier in order to curb my mounting anger.

So then I come across Strong Bad's Cool Game for Attractive People where the different locations Strong Bad teleports to on the map are rather arbitrary in their location.  So arbitrary, in fact, that Strong Bad -- once a new location is discovered -- allows the player to "draw in" the new location anywhere they want on the in-game map.  They're colorful little thumbnails, as if Strong Bad is carrying around his own eight-pack of Crayola Twistables Crayons; and the whimsical nature of the map-making harkens back to the days of King's Quest without necessarily harkening back to the retrospective frustrations hidden in those bygone halcyon days of Sierra adventure gaming.

Perhaps an adventure game will come along that, no, won't force you to draw in 120 screens of compass-bashing north-south-east-west rectangles, but might throw us '80s and early '90s adventure gamers a bone, letting us break out our rustic map-drawing skills once more for old times' sake.  I'd break out some graph paper for that.

Texas and Rhode Island will field epic numbers of warriors to do battle.  South Dakota and Vermont, for the opposite reason, may resort to skullduggery with their fewer recruited fighters. Nowhere in the United States does Order reign over Destruction ... and the light grows dimmer by the minute.

This is America according to Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning.

WAR's ingenious little scheme to translate in-game realm vs. realm warfare into a real-world affair of state-ist pride is working.  With a Google-powered Tele Atlas, WAR's developer, Mythic (sans "EA" in name, but not in payroll), devised a Road to War metagame that punctures the worldwide landscape with little orange and black dots of allegiance.  Head to the site, register your email address, select your alignment with Order or Destruction, and choose your champion race.  Soon enough, your orange or black dot of allegiance will become apparent to the world.

Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are world powers in the Road to War, too.  But living here in the United States, the quote-unquote Home of the Brave, and watching the numbers depicting good against evil -- with evil clearly dominating -- started messing with my head.  I started taking the statistics personally. 

Would no state (none?) find a majority fighting for the side of Order?  If you've been following WAR's development, it's plain to see that "Order" is still synonymous with "We must break you."  So it becomes apparent that there's a deeper American psychology at work here, at least among MMO players.  We're living in a very unpopular country in this day and age -- yet even in fantasy realms are we siding with evil, perhaps presuming that that's the path of least resistance to victory?  Or are these results more benign in nature, and living good, orderly lives during our regular workday compels us to swing our state to the dark side in a video game?

I'll tell you one thing:  Were this fun little study in sociology to suddenly turn very real, and the world's armies were to be suddenly populated only with PC-loving, MMO-playing soldiers … I would completely avoid living in Delaware, Georgia, and Kentucky, the three most  Destruction-populated states per capita in the U.S.  And were I too look for the greatest number of warriors fighting for the side of Order, I would fall into formation with North Dakota, West Virginia or, in fact, stay right here in my home state of Oregon.  Those are the only states where the good vs. evil ratio even tries to strike for a 50/50 balance.  Though, as I alluded to in the first paragraph, no state currently has a majority of people registering with Order. 

Granted, this is only a snapshot at 10:00 p.m. on Thursday, August 14th.  Things will change, all up until WAR's September 18th release.  And, granted, there are some erroneous statistics that emerge right off the bat, like the fact that Rhode Island has 919,610 people registered on the Road to War map -- but Rhode Island's real-world population is only 1,067,610.  Is 86% of that state planning on playing WAR?  Pffft.  Rhode Island ain’t South Korea, no matter how much you skew the numbers.  The likely explanation?  Either Rhode Island has a hax0r cooking the books, or their entire MMO-playing populace decided to register a vote with every single email address they’ve kept open since 1998.  Doubtless there’s plenty of that.  But taken with a grain of salt, this is an entertaining little study.

For shins and giggles, I'll let the following table of statistics I cranked out speak for itself.  And to make it more dramatic when discussing percentages, I just point out the evil percentage of players in each state.  Find yours.  Find out how evil and destructive your state’s populace truly is.

  [EDIT:  Upon further contempation of this Road toWar -- though the site doesn't clearly state this fact either -- the numbers collected below for Destruction and Order are probably not members that have registered on the map, but the amount of gold raised for Destruction and Order's sides of the conflict.  Think of the numbers below as campaign funds.  And realize that, while Rhode Island may not have an immense population, its evil MMO players are willing to work harder for their money.  I'm not sure that would make me feel any safer there.]

STATE	DESTRUCTION	ORDER	TOTAL	EVIL %
Alabama	105,135	57,545	162,680	65%
Alaska	37,753	31,743	69,496	54%
Arizona	146,544	91,086	237,630	62%
Arkansas	58,720	33,289	92,009	64%
California	1,015,413	422,851	1,438,264	71%
Colorado	104,628	55,703	160,331	65%
Connecticut	74,749	36,500	111,249	67%
Delaware	14,037	3,523	17,660	79%
Florida	377,245	216,903	594,148	63%
Georgia	203,350	50,665	254,015	80%
Hawaii	31,308	10,679	41,987	75%
Idaho	49,522	20,600	70,122	71%
Illinois	207,180	94,976	302,156	69%
Indiana	97,991	61,461	159,452