Mass Effect 3 Demo Impressions

We got hold of an early access demo key to BioWare‘s Mass Effect 3, so instead of getting on with one of the many games I’m part-way through, I fired up the 360 to play.

I’ve not played the previous games in the series, although friends have; so I’ve heard plenty about the various companions in the games.. either for their fighting abilities or lack of, or for the romance options which I think are optional.  In fact, that was almost all I knew about the series, along with knowing about the dialogue choices that affect the storyline, and the ability to carry your character over from one game to the next.

I was surprised to see that players are given the option to choose the mode of the game: Action, Roleplaying or Story mode.

Action Mode means adjustable combat difficulty, and replaces dialogue options with cutscenes, whilst Story Mode enables character customisation and dialogue options during conversation.  Roleplaying mode allows you to customise your character, choose dialogue options and still adjust combat difficulty: this is how the previous games worked, and sounded like a good balance to me.

The next choice was what class to be.. which came down to the mix of combat, tech or biotics I wanted to use.  They all sounded interesting.. stealth, powerful close combat attacks, the ability to deploy combat drones.. but I picked Adept as the ability to fire micro singularities at my enemies sounded pretty awesome 🙂

After that, there were a few other choices for background, reputation and potential psychological issues.. whether you’re an orphan who manages to survive disasters while all around you die, or whether you’re an army kid prepared to risk yourself for your team mates and so on.. I suspect these choices come into play during the story, or influence your available dialogue options.

The first part of the demo sees Shepard being brought to the Defense Committee, who are worried as they have been receiving distress signals, and lost touch with colonies and so on.  Shepard says it’s the Reapers, but the Committee are still unsure, until the Reapers actually arrive on the scene..

The Reapers destroy the building we’re in, killing the Committee, and when we get outside it’s obvious they’re destroying the rest of the city too.

Impressive, massive machines.. 🙂

I followed the Admiral out of the ruined buildings and across rooftops, heading for a landing zone and pickup from the Normandy.

I’m not convinced by the constant aiming.. Shepard only lowered the gun when sprinting, so there was a point where I was running along aiming my empty gun at nothing in particular!  The controls felt great with just one odd bit: running with the A button, then melee with B.. I think that would make running and hitting a bit awkward.. but maybe melee combat only really comes up in closer quarters.  Playing as an Adept, I would probably be using the Singularity and then shooting the enemies trapped in it, and avoiding melee.

The dialogue options were fairly simple: at different points in the conversation, a few options appeared on a little circle at the bottom.  You just pick the one you want, and Shepard says something with the same general meaning.. I think this has little effect on events in the demo, but it’s nice to feel involved.. and in the full game this should mean different reactions and endings depending on what you picked.

The second part of the demo is a mission to collect a female Krogan from a Solarian base.. there’s a bit of drama to start with because the Solarians don’t like Rex, the male Krogan on your team.  Going to get the female, though, requires fighting through Cerberus forces on the way up through the building.

This action was good fun, moving from one area to the next, flanking enemies, hitting them with singularities and using cover.  Cover has been improved from the previous games: you are able to move around the side of some objects while using them for cover, though the game has been designed so that you can’t just pop your head out and kill all the enemies without moving.

Just before we finally got to the female Krogan, a huge mech was dropped into the building..

He had shields and armour to get through, and though I used cover, it didn’t protect me complete from the rockets fired by him, or the grenades thrown by the Agents who appeared to back him up.  One tough, but very satisfying fight.. I ended up moving around the whole map to get some distance and avoid the rockets, as well as dealing with the Agents.

I’m now looking forward to this game.. we’re probably going to get it on the 360 to share, rather than buying a copy each on Origin (yes, it does require Origin on PC).

Mass Effect 3 is due to be published by EA on the 6th March in the US, and the 9th March in the UK and Europe.

The Indie Royale: The Valentine’s Bundle

Indie Royale’s The Valentine’s Bundle is now out, with five games, and bonus DLC!  As usual the bundle is available on a pay what you want scheme, with a minimum price, although you can pay more to unlock the bonus, show your support, and knock down the price for others!

The games are: action fighting game Zeno Clash, by Ace Team, Hoard, a strategy game featuring dragons, by Big Sandwich Games Inc., adventure puzzle game Lume, by StateofPlay, and world premiere PC versions of retro RPG defense games Soulcaster and Soulcaster II, by MagicalTimeBean!

The bonus DLC in this bundle is for HOARD: Dynamite Roll!, which adds nine new maps and extra units, and Flame-Broiled SANDwich which adds a desert continent and remodelled buildings, units and terrain!

For those paying more than the current minimum, there’s also One Life Left’s music compilation, “Music To Play Games By Too“.

We looked at all the games in a bit more detail.. you can read it over here.

Warhorse Studios Licenses CryEngine 3 for RPG

Warhorse Studios have announced that they have reached an agreement with Crytek to use their game engine, CryEngine 3, for use in an as-yet-unannounced RPG.

This will be the first game for Warhorse Studios, a new studio set up in 2011 by industry veterans who were previously involved with the Mafia franchise and Operation Flashpoint.

Though their new project has not been announced, they say “it is a game that is not going to disappoint fans of open realistic worlds and quality stories”.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Demo

The demo for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning came out on Steam last week.. an action RPG in a colourful fantasy setting, with four playable races and a fully customisable set of skills and abilities.

The game has been developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games, but is published by EA, so on launching the game I had to log in to my EA account.  Doing so unlocked a few items for use in the full game, if I go ahead and purchase later, as well as some themed armour for Mass Effect 3.

Players start as a blank slate, risen from the dead thanks to the powers of the Well of Souls.  After dragging myself out of a pile of dead bodies, I went in search of the exit.. finding starter gear, some gnomes, attacking Tuatha Soldiers, and eventually, the gnome researcher working with the Well of Souls.

The Tower was eventually overrun by the attacking forces, and on the way out I had a final battle with a Rock Troll.. a chance to string a few moves together after being shown the basics of weapons and magic.

At this point, my character’s abilities with each weapon was the same, but I liked the dual-wield daggers best.  During the exploration part of the demo, I found some better-quality daggers with bonus acid damage.. and after levelling up and spending some ability points, I was able to make a rather nice dashing combo too.

Levelling up provided me with a skill point, which I used to improve Detect Hidden, allowing enemies and treasure to appear on the mini map, and ability points which I used to increase damage with daggers, as well as unlocking the Shadow Strike ability.  This was all personal choice: I could have chosen any combination of abilities from Sorcery, Might or Finesse to suit my gameplay.

Reckoning Mode was interesting.. accessible after filling up the purple Fate meter, this gave me extra power and allowed me to finish off weakened enemies with special, and rather showy, moves..

I got different moves each time, too 🙂

The demo was reported to contain a few bugs and glitches: the first of these for me was the worst, as I had no graphics!  A friend told me this was down to having a Radeon, and to turn off post-processing, which fixed it.  Elsewhere, I had the odd short freeze, as well as text which appeared and then disappeared too quickly for me to read it.  The developers were aware of this, and replied to a thread on NeoGAF.  Apparently the demo was created by a third party, from older code, and so the full game should be free of these.

Bugs aside, I think this demo was very well done.  It allowed me to see the basics of the game, get an idea of the forces at play, and then explore the world as I pleased for up to 45 minutes.  For me, this was long enough to see that I’d enjoy playing it.. though I will probably wait till I’ve cleared some of my backlog before picking it up.

King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame

King Arthur II: The Role-Playing Wargame, the turn-based strategy RPG by Neocore Games and Paradox Interactive, has now been released on the PC.

While trying to protect his kingdom, King Arthur suffered a wound which won’t heal and thus became the Maimed King.. and his land is suffering with him.  Camelot is in ruins, with the Knights of the Round Table scattered or turned against each other, and monsters roam the lands..

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RZ-2leHqbE0]

Players take control of a small army of warriors, attempting to uncover the dark forces at work in the lands of ancient Britannia.  Gameplay consists of a mixture of strategic and tactical phases, with a large campaign map for strategic actions such as moving armies and completing story-driven quests, and tactical battles taking place when two armies meet.  Battles can take place under the direct command of the player, with numerous tactics to choose from, or they can be Auto-Resolved for an instant decision.

The King Arthur II demo, featuring the tutorial and first mission, is available for download here.

Coal Collector!

The Great Gift Pile objectives are turning out to be a mix of quick and easy tasks and longer, more difficult challenges..

Atom Zombie Smasher: KringleJammer was fairly easy to get, as was the Rock of Ages: Snowball War.  Audiosurf: Candy Stripe required only the collection of red and white blocks in a line, but it took me a while to find something on my PC that played at the right pace to generate the blocks I wanted.  “Still Alive” was giving me blue blocks, so wouldn’t do for this!

Beat Hazard: Survive Christmas 10 required me to survive for 10 minutes.. and it took far longer than that!  After several attempts of under five minutes each, I realised I had unlocked some perks which might help: the Ultra DLC added Micro Missiles and a Reflect Shield which just about let me last long enough to complete the objective.

A harder achievement was the deliberate loss of a game in Fate of the World, where instead of trying to save the world, I led it towards global thermonuclear war and the Let it Glow achievement!  After a few attempts I ended up consulting the internet for tips on how to get the ‘right’ ending.. it turned out to be a rather tight list of instructions while hoping for the right random numbers to be generated each turn.  I think actually winning this game, as opposed to playing for an achievement, will be next to impossible as all territories seem to get annoyed with you very quickly! 😀

For another deliberate loss, I also tried to nuke Santa in DEFCON.. but found his movements too unpredictable, the AI too eager to react, and my supply of nukes too low for me to get him.  I quickly got bored of this, so I checked out the tips on the net again, and reduced the number of cities to 5 per territory, but then found the game crashing almost as soon as I launched a nuke!  Something to do with the latest update and Windows 7 🙁

Another not-quite-game objective was Winter Assault.. survive a 30 minute match on Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II – Retribution, on one of the winter maps.  Four of us joined the game, with one going AFK immediately.. only interested in the achievement itself.. but three of us met in the middle to trade blows until we’d met our time requirement!  I wished for more Great Unclean Ones, but settled for a squad of Chaos Dreadnoughts instead 😀

With the completion of all these objectives, I’m collecting lots of coal along with vouchers which probably won’t get used.. two are for Valve.. I already own all their games, as do all my gaming friends.  Although, if anyone does want them.. 🙂

I did win one game via the giveaway.. Silent Dreams’ Grotesque Tactics: Evil Heroes, a fantasy role-playing game with strategic combat and a sense of humour.  The games in this giveaway are provided as a token, which can be added to your own inventory or traded.. so if you already own the game you win, you can give it away or trade it for something else.

A friend bought me Space Pirates and Zombies by Minmax Games, which I tried briefly last night.  After stumbling through the first couple of missions, I decided I need to be somewhat alert to play! 🙂

The Steam sales are ongoing, and I also picked up ACE Team‘s rather Monty Python-esque Rock of Ages, mentioned earlier, and Croteam‘s Serious Sam HD: The Second Encounter, and Serious Sam 3: BFE, with the first two games below £2 each, and Serious Sam 3 at a reasonable price, considering I wanted a copy for me and a copy for Tim.

Other women spend their money on shoes: I spend my money on games! 🙂

Cthulhu Saves The World

Cthulhu Saves the World, by Zeboyd, was part of the Really Big Bundle which released a couple of days back.  This one is like a return to the old-style 2d games I played in the past.. but with a dose of tongue-in-cheek humour too 🙂

Having lost his powers at the beginning of the game, Cthulhu has to undertake a quest and become a hero.. saving the world so he can regain his powers.. although once he’s done, he’ll get back to destroying the world!

The first enemies met are two ‘Gooez’, who have kidnapped a girl on the beach.  Heroism requires that we fight them off, of course!  The combat is turn-based, with attacks selected from menus rather like in Final Fantasy.. physical attacks and special attacks such as Insane Strike, which use up magic points and sometimes apply a status debuff to the enemy.

After winning this first battle, Cthulhu levelled up and got a choice of level up bonus.. one affecting Strength and the other affecting Magic.  I went with the Strength boost.. so now every time Cthulhu causes an enemy to go insane, he gets an increase to Strength too.  Umi, the formerly kidnapped girl, also joined the party after the battle.. and falls in love with our tentacle-faced anti-hero 😮

More random-encounter enemies were to be found in the caves.. providing XP and another little joke in the enemy description!

Zeboyd have capped the number of random encounters in each area, which gives you a little nudge when you’re powerful enough to move to the next area, and also means you don’t end up taking just a few paces and being attacked again, over and over until you’re sick of it.

The first real opposition came from a group of adventurers called the Three Heroes of Goodly Justice.. a Thief, a Warrior and a Cleric.  These guys brought some great dialogue too, and once defeated, Cthulhu notes that we’ll probably see them again because they’re heroes, they’ll respawn at the nearest church anyway 😀

After each fight, the party members HP is restored, and some Magic Points.  I don’t think you get enough back, though.. what you’re given back doesn’t even cover the cost of a spell.  I’ve only found health potions so far, which means my only other option is just dealing normal attacks and waiting for my Magic to regenerate.

Cthulhu Saves the World was originally released for the 360, and was only brought to the PC this summer, where it has apparently done rather well for the developers 🙂

The Indie Royale Really Big Bundle

The Indie Royale team have now released the latest indie bundle: the Really Big Bundle, containing Really Big Sky, Runespell: Overture, Cthulhu Saves the World, Eufloria and Breath of Death VII!

This bundle was made available to pre-order a short while ago, but sight unseen, and I was reluctant to buy in case I had the games already.  However, of these, I have to admit that I’d only heard of Really Big Sky, Cthulhu and Eufloria, and very little about those too..

Really Big Sky is a twin-stick shooter by Boss Baddie, where you face down waves of alien invaders, from actual enemies to laser planets and black holes! There are seven different game modes, including co-op.. and the game is generated from the way you play.. whether that means more of the enemies you do least well against, or simply that enemies grow stronger, I will have to see!

The rest of the pack seems to include games to suit different moods.. Cthulhu Saves the World is an RPG by Zeboyd, where you help Cthulhu regain his powers on a quest of courage, romance, redemption and insanity.. as it says on the tin.  Breath of Death VII is also from Zeboyd, another RPG, but more of a parody.  Sounds like these two are for when I’m in a particularly silly mood, then! 🙂

Runespell: Overture is another role-playing game, but using collectible cards to form attacks.  I think I’m only really going to know what this one is about once I’ve started playing it.. something different to the usual games is certainly worth taking a look at, and might even make me think a little more.

Eufloria is a beautiful, ambient game with exploration and conquest, with new asteroids providing resources which allow you to grow, but also attract rivals.  Like a few other games I’ve played or bought recently, the levels are procedurally generated so you never see quite the same level twice 🙂

I think Eufloria will be the game to calm me down again after the sillier games.. at least on the earlier levels 😀

The Binding of Isaac

The Binding of Isaac is an action adventure RPG by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, the developers of Super Meat Boy.  I got this game via the Humble Voxatron Debut..

I was initially repulsed by the graphics for this game.. a crying boy surrounded by mutated tormentors.. and the story isn’t much nicer.  Apparently, it’s based on a Hebrew Bible story in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his son, Isaac, and he binds him before leaving him on an altar to die..

In the game, Isaac’s mother begins to hear the voice of God.. who initially tells her that Isaac is unclean, causing her to take away his toys and lock him in his room.. but later demands she sacrifice him to prove her devotion!  To escape, Isaac dives into the basement, where he encounters mutated creatures.. lost brothers and sisters..

To fight these monsters, poor Isaac fires his tears at them.. some, like the squishy-headed thing above, don’t fight back.. while others are immediately hostile.

There are a variety of power-ups and items available too, giving stronger ‘arrows’, shielding or bombs.   The loot from one chest included a yellow bomb with a face.. which I just about recognised as trollface.. just as it exploded, taking away a heart 😮

I’ve had a few forays into the game now, and while the dungeons, loot, enemies and bosses are all randomised, so far each basement I’ve seen has had a treasure room, a shop, and a room with a boss..

The first boss I encountered was Monstro.. who slaughtered me when I got a little too close!

Fighting isn’t complex at all.. if anything it feels a bit cheap as you can just kite the enemy around the room while shooting.  Monstro jumps, landing on the place the player had been standing; easy enough to avoid so long as you don’t get yourself trapped in the corner as I did 😉

The second boss I’ve faced was more repulsive still.. Gemini features conjoined twins: the larger one chases Isaac and strangles him if he gets close enough, while the smaller one intermittently vomits a shower of blood at Isaac!

This boss moves quickly, and I was glad of the rocks to hide behind.. though he did catch up with me on this attempt.  When Isaac dies, it’s game over.. there is no save game system.. you just get to see his Last Will. 😉

The music is actually very good too..
It’s not often I really notice the music in games (especially since I spend a lot of my gaming time on Mumble) but it really adds to the feeling of despair and sadness.  Ok.. I’m off to go hug the kitties now!

Dungeon Defenders

Dungeon Defenders is a Tower Defense Action-RPG game by Trendy Entertainment.. delayed some months, but finally released yesterday.  There have been a few combination tower defense and action games lately, and like the others, there are two phases per round: the Build phase, where you place barriers and traps, then the Action phase, where the enemies come..

Our enemies here are goblins, orcs, dark elves and similar, and they head towards the Eternia Crystal in the centre of your castle, while you use your player character’s abilities to help fend them off, as well as repairing and upgrading your defenses as you go..

There are four classes of player characters to choose from: Apprentice, Huntress, Squire and Monk, each with their own abilities and defenses, and apparently more to come later.  The characters all level up and acquire loot through the game too, unlocking more defensive options and stronger abilities.

The game has a singleplayer mode, as well as co-op for up to four players, and a PvP mode.  We had a few problems getting into the game to start with.. being unable to connect to the servers or each other.. we managed to launch the game around an additional update coming out, but after validating the game files and restarting a few times, we were able to get into a co-op game together.

Starting off, you are placed in the host’s Tavern.. this has a number of other features I’ve not yet explored.  From here, you can choose whether you’re doing a Campaign or a Challenge, and choose the level and difficulty.

For our first co-op playthrough, I took the Apprentice, who specialises in elemental towers and magical attacks.  He starts off with a Magic Missile Tower.. but it wasn’t too long before I was also able to use Magic Barricades.  I’m looking forward to the Fireball and Lightening towers, but I’ll need to level up more first!

The enemies will go out of their way to attack your defenses, but you can repair them, and with enough mana, upgrade them too.

Killing enemies awards mana, and at the end of every level you can open chests around the map, which provide mana as well as various pieces of loot.. armour and weapons.  Loot comes with varying stats on it, and some pieces are class-specific, so as it dropped we shared it out accordingly.. my friends were playing as the Squire and the Monk.

After defeating all waves on the first level, we were able to move straight on to the next level, which had enemies coming from three sides.  We were doing well enough until the Kobolds arrived.. but they explode, and cause rather a lot of damage..

If you are killed, you have a short count-down to respawning.. but if the enemies have reached your crystal, that’s time you don’t want to spend laying on the floor 😉

The three of us were unable to beat the second level on this attempt, but as the characters have levelled up and gained some nice loot, I’m sure we’ll do better next time..