TallGuyCalif's Computer Gaming and Entertainment Site

Category: Games I Like

  • Loving the mounted combat in LOTRO Riders of Rohan

    The mounted combat in the latest Lord of the Rings Online expansion, Riders of Rohan, transforms the game in fun and interesting ways. When you are on your war steed, you have a new set of class-specific mounted skills. So my Lore-Master can shoot fireballs, stun enemies, and more, while Hunters can use bows from horseback, which I assume would rock! When you’re on the war steed, you’re harder to hit, and damage is distributed between you and your horse. There are skills to heal both of you, so that helps. The biggest issue with mounted combat is that the mounted skill require “power” (the blue bar) from the horse, rather than from you. This runs out fairly quickly, though there are traits to help and stances that conserve horse power (ha ha).

    Mounted combat against unmounted foes is nifty, because they have a hard time hitting you, while you hit them and the gallop away, then swing around for another pass. Mounted vs. mounted combat is a fun challenge, because the enemy has similar capabilities to yours, so it gets tougher. If the enemy hits you enough to dismount you, you’d better get back on quickly or else you’re dead. I got knocked off by a warband leader (mini-boss) and figured I’d make a stand from the ground. My health dropped so fast it wasn’t funny. I was able to re-mount the war steed and finish the fight, but it was quite a challenge.

    So mounted combat in LOTRO is great and highly recommended.

    The LOTRO devs have applied what they learned in Rohan to Moria. The areas around the 21st Hall and south are much improved. The open-tapping of enemies (meaning multiple people can get credit, encouraging us to help each other) and remote looting are there, as are location-based quests, including a bunch of new ones that are great. With many of these quests, you can turn them in anywhere, rather than having to trek back to the quest giver to get your reward. Great improvement, matching Guild Wars 2 and Star Trek Online.

    So LOTRO is a better game now than it has ever been. Nice work, Turbine!

  • Finished Diablo III

    I finished Diablo III last night and enjoyed the ending. Of course, as soon as I finished it, it suggested I start again in nightmare mode. Not bloody likely. I know of people that play games over and over again to get the platinum trophy or max achievement, but once I know how it ends, I can’t be bothered. I played through parts over Dragon Age Origins several times, because each origin story was unique and great, plus the origin affected later parts of the game.

    The only way I’ll revisit Diablo III is playing co-op if any of my friends get the game. But until then, it is shelved.

  • Diablo III is fun, but a bit too much work

    I have been mostly enjoying Diablo III lately, though I have been spending a fair bit of time playing LOTRO, too. LOTRO is still my comfortable, go-to game that is almost always fun and entertaining. I still keep playing the occasional A-List title, and my current one is Diablo III.

    I never finished Diablo I and Diablo II, but I enjoyed my time with both of them. Diablo III has great atmosphere and voice acting, decent, though limited graphics, and mostly fun gameplay. In Diablo III, you can choose to play one of several classes, including Barbarian, Demon Hunter, and more. I am playing a Wizard. Unlike previous Diablo games, where the two prominent status balls on the display showed your health and mana, for a wizard, they show health and arcane power. Arcane power is the stuff that powers Wizard attacks and spells, but it regenerates fairly quickly. Early in the game, I ran out often and had to run around a bit for it to regenerate so I could continue freezing, zapping, or otherwise nuking the enemies. Now, I rarely run out, because most of my battles end very quickly. I have the ability to wear a storm shield that zaps any enemies damaging me, so I often hear the cries of dying enemies even before they are onscreen. My primary and secondary attacks are also powerful ranged attacks that make sure most enemies never get close to me. If they do get close, I can freeze, then shatter them. So the combat is pretty awesome. I do occasionally die on some of the toughest bosses, but once I figure out how to avoid their attacks, they die pretty quickly. The mini-bosses tend not to last long under my withering attacks.

    So what do I mean about Diablo III being too much work? The two biggest problems I have with it are that it is way too click-oriented, so my poor hand can’t handle playing for too long, and the online login system that is required to play the game.

    In Diablo III, almost everything involves clicking the mouse. Movement? Yep, clicking, no WASD keys here. Attacks? Right and left mouse buttons. Changing camera view? Silly gamer, you can’t change the camera view, this is Diablo! Spells? They use number keys (1-4), but some of them require that you target with your mouse. Healing? The “Q” key. So, you end up clicking a lot, which is bad for your mouse hand. It isn’t quite as awful and stupid as Mass Effect 2’s planet scanning mechanic, but it isn’t too far behind. So take Diablo III in moderation and don’t overdo it.

    The online login system through Battle.Net is a serious pain in the butt. It is required to play the game, so you must create a Battle.Net account. Unfortunately, these Battle.Net accounts are under constant attack by hackers that want to break in and use your account for gold farmer advertising or more nefarious reasons (yes, WOW accounts seem to be linked to Battle.Net, so that attracts a lot of attention right there). Unfortunately, some scumbag gold farmer in China seems to have locked up the TallguyCalif account, even though I reported it to Blizzard months ago when I got the email that the account was created, so I had to use an alternate email address. I installed the game and played one evening, then the account was locked the next day, presumably because some hacker was trying to get in. So I connected the authenticator app on my iPad to the account and can now keep the hackers out, but it seems to require me to authenticate every couple of days, and if I don’t have my iPad next to me, I just switch to another game.

    So unlike most of the other good games I play, I can’t recommend you get Diablo III. It’s fun, but the hassles of Battle.Net and the carpal tunnel damage mean it is not worth spending much money for.

     

  • Eclectic Game Playing Recently (Pocket Legends, LOTRO, Star Trek Online, and Planetside 2)

    In this case, by Eclectic, I mean random, crazy, no theme or consistency…

    I’ve been very busy recently with work and personal projects, so I haven’t had a lot of time to play games, and when I have had time, it has been in small increments. The exception to this was Fable III, which I wrote about previously. But other gaming times, I needed something comfortable that I could jump into an out of quickly.

    Pocket Legends is perfect for that. I could jump on with the iPad, play for a bit, and jump out. The gameplay hasn’t changed too much since I was on many months ago, but everything seems a little better, with the guilds and the crafting and other features that have been improved. This time, I created a mage character, rather than my old warrior. Mages have the advantage that they can heal themselves and their party members, which is great. While they’re not as tough as warriors and perhaps can’t deal as much damage, they still do pretty well and the ranged attacks help keep them out of trouble a bit. Mages can also do AOE attacks that damage enemies around them and also party buffs and enemy debuffs. I’ll write more about my Pocket Legends experiences at a later date.

    I’ve been given leadership of my Lord of the Rings Online kinship, Thirst for Power, and have created a website to try to build community in the kinship. Unfortunately, there aren’t many players participating these days, so we need to figure out how to revitalize the kinship. I finally took my highest level character, Tallborn, into Rohan, and the changes I’ve seen so far are big steps up. More in another post.

    Sadly, I inherited the leadership of my Star Trek Online fleet, as well. Since I seems to be the only one who signs in, I don’t know how much effort I will put into rebuilding it, but I probably won’t disband it any time soon. At least there are no upkeep fees, unlike in LOTRO where you need to remember to keep paying rent on the kin house (and your personal house).

    I also started playing Planetside 2, a new MMOFPS (Massively Multiplayer Online First Person Shooter). It is fun, because you can play one of 5 or 6 classes, like medic, engineer, scout, etc., and can drop in and out at will, so no long-term commitments, unlike raids in LOTRO or other MMORPGs, which can last for hours and hours. It is a persistent world where 3 factions compete to capture regions and gain the advantage. The sides are well matched, so there is no innate advantage between them. Planetside 2 is annoying, because you will die a lot. Many higher level players have way better gear than you and they will use it to kill you. Often. Over and over again. Also, figuring out who your enemy is can be tough. I have been playing as one of the purple uniform guys, and sometimes it takes a bit to figure out if they guy in front of you is purple or blue, at which point, you die because you took too long. Annoying, though I presume it will get better with practice. I haven’t been back to Planetside 2 for a few days, because it seemed so futile, but I will almost surely go back. Unless Hawken is as good as it looks…

  • Fragmented gaming recently, but finished and loved Fable III

    I’ve been pretty busy recently, so have only had very fragmented gaming time. I did finish Fable III, however and really enjoyed it. The game was good, the voice acting superb, and the sense of humor throughout was terrific.

    Fable III started off pretty easily, with baddies almost never hurting you as you blast them with fire or guns or your hammer. Later on, though, they get faster and tougher and make the fights very challenging. The combat is very good, however, allowing you to quickly switch between magic, melee weapons (swords and hammers), and guns (rifles and pistols). Eventually, you can combine 2 types of magic to make nifty and powerful effects, which is a fun thing to try out.

    The characters in the game are great, but having John Cleese as your butler and trusted advisor totally rocks. The other voice acting is also terrific and includes many famous stars. The biggest problem with the game, in my opinion, is the constant chatter of the NPCs surrounding you, especially the store clerks. They are always yammering on about something or other, and what they yammer about may change based on whether you buy the store or do other things. It’s a nifty and dynamic scheme, but is a bit annoying.

    To a large extent, Fable III is a dumbed down Fable II, but that doesn’t really hurt it. Much of it is more streamlined than Fable II, and that makes it a little friendlier. The ability to zap back to your “sanctuary” at any point to change clothes or weapons is pretty nifty, as is the ability to buy and manage houses and repairs simply from the maps.

    “Houses and repairs, you say? I thought this was an action-ish RPG?” Indeed it is, but the way to get ahead is to invest in houses and stores so you can make gobs of money, which you will eventually need, but I won’t spoil anything by saying why. So, yes, buy every property you can afford and you will get rent coming in every 5 minutes.

    The game is not for kids, as it involves unsafe sex, STDs, pregnancy, and, apparently, orgies, though I managed to miss that. None of the above are graphic, however, so if your spouse walks in, you will only be embarrassed by the sound, not imagery.

    The game was great, but the ending lacked epic-ness. The final boss fight, and the path leading to it, were pretty trivial and almost boring. Perhaps the devs were told “SHIP IT!” and just found a quick way to wrap it up. But the ending is no worse than so many other games, so I won’t ding it too badly for that.

    So get Fable III and play it. It goes on sale on Steam occasionally, so get it there or on XBOX 360.

  • LOTRO Tour 9: Lone Lands

    In this video tour, we cross the Lone Lands from the Forsaken Inn to Ost Guruth, but in a roundabout way. The path takes us to the summit of Weathertop where the Hobbits encountered the Nazgul, then down a shortcut and back to the road. We encounter wargs, spiders, half-orcs, and more on the way to Ost Guruth.

     

  • LOTRO Tour 8: Bree to the Forsaken Inn

    Here I paid for a fast horse from the south gate of Bree to the Forsaken Inn at the start of the Lone Lands. Upon leaving South Chetwood, we can see the Midgewater Marshes, then the entrance to the Bree player housing area, and finally arriving at the Forsaken Inn, which clearly has seen better days.

     

  • Fable III Missing Child mission

    I’m enjoying Fable III a lot. To some extent, it is a slightly dumbed-down Fable II, but so far, it is extremely well done, and the voice acting is superb (John Cleese, Ben Kingsley, Bernard Hill, Simon Pegg, and more)! I have only played a few hours, so haven’t done any flirting or marriage or anything, but I’m enjoying the triple thread of magic, guns, and swords.

    The video shows a mission where I needed to rescue a missing child. Once I found her, I needed to hold her hand to bring her back to her mother (with several attacks on the way). It turns out that the hand holding dynamic is used throughout the game to escort people, even adults of the same gender, so get used to it!

  • LOTRO Tour Part 6: Stock to Bree

    In my never ending quest to show just how big Middle Earth in LOTRO is, I’m continuing the tour, this time riding from Stock (in the Shire) to Bree.

    This is, of course, not the path the Hobbits took to Bree, as they went through the forest and met Tom Bombadil. Sometime, I will show that path as well, but it is a bit of a maze, so I thought it better to continue the tour in a simple manner first.

    I am horrified to see that I already did such a tour segment, but this is a new video and probably nicer…

  • Star Trek Online ground mission

    The best part, in my opinion, of Star Trek Online are the starship battles, but the ground missions are fairly good, as well. In most of them, you and your faithful Bridge Officers (BOFFs) fight enemies and scan things and fix broken things and generally save the planet. It is important to choose your BOFFs to have a wide range of skills available. Science officers can heal you and disable or slow enemies, while engineering officers refill your shields and summon turrets and generators to help with health and shields, and tactical officers throw grenades and can buff the team. All these are in addition to your skills.

    If you are playing as part of a team, then you and your teammates may end up with fewer BOFFs each on a particular mission, but not always. There are a few large ground battles where it is just you and other players against lots of enemies, but you don’t get the BOFFs to help you. Overall, it’s a pretty nice system and you’re never lonely when you have your BOFFs to talk to…