Skyrim - or the trouble with console ports

Over the weekend I had the good fortune to lay my hands on Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (PC) for a few hours. A friend's friend had just picked up the game and he let me play on his machine. I was rather excited to get the chance to test it because the hype surrounding this game is huge. It has almost universally garnered excellent reviews.

This isn't a proper review because I only played the game for those few short hours. It is mostly a commentary on the sad state of console-to-PC ports.

First, a little background. I adored Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind but disliked Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. For these reasons, I wasn't sure I was going to like Skyrim.

In the little time I spent with Skyrim, I discovered an amazingly complex universe where my character was free to roam at will. The world of Skyrim is hauntingly beautiful and just makes you want to keep exploring. Well, until you stumble across some vicious monster or other.

I enjoyed the experience a great deal but all this was marred by the game's biggest flaw: the interface. Unfortunately, the developers were lazy enough to slap the same shoddy console interface on the PC version. The fact is that Skyrim wasn't made with a mouse and keyboard in mind. And it really sucks. The menus, the inventory system and character stats are a mess. It's true that after a couple of hours playing it I kinda-sorta got used to it but given enough time one can get used to anything, for example like riding a lame donkey versus a Ferarri.

To further compound the issue, the skill "tree" is so badly conceived that I dreaded having to visit it when I leveled up. The various "perks" are arranged in the form of constellations, a different one for each skill. While nice and shiny, navigating between the different skills and perks with a mouse and keyboard is a nightmare.

Melee combat seemed floaty and imprecise but casting spells was satisfying enough.

Overall I enjoyed Skyrim, which was more than I expected from it. The incredibly open world is rich with places to explore and quests to conquer. Even half an hour into the game you can find youself with at least half a dozen quests in your log and it's more often than not that embarking on one quest will get you sidetracked into yet another side-quest. In my short time in Skyrim quests didn't feel repetitive either and apparently the devs have stated that the game can generate an infinite number of quests, which is always a good thing for replayability.

All things considered, Skyrim still comes out as a great game but it's unfortunate that Bethesda has forgotten their PC origins and have chosen to saddle this otherwise brilliant game with a terrible and shoddy console interface. My dislike for consoles is only hardened by this experience, and I continue to believe that a proper RPG should not be played on a console, or at least not without mouse-and-keyboard. While many reviews have given Skyrim scores of 9/10 or 90%, I can't give it more than 8/10. I was seriously considering buying it but now I'll just wait until it reaches the discount bin.

DC Universe Online is now free-to-play

Just a heads-up for those interested. Starting on November 1st 2011, which was yesterday, DC Universe Online went free-to-play. I'm not that much into superheroes but I'll give it a whirl.

At this point I have very little knowledge about this game but I'll try to learn it as I go along. If I can get past the first couple of hours without getting bored, then I'll probably keep playing.

The free version of the game does seem a little restricted compared to, say, World of Tanks, but let us not forget that DC Universe Online started out with a subscription-based model. You can still subscribe, fear not, but now there's the option to try-before-you buy.

I've currently downloaded about 10GB of the 14GB game client. Yikes! I'll probably fire up the game over the next couple of days.

World of Tanks - more addictive than you'd think

What's the best game of the year? Depends who you ask but for me it was definitely World of Tanks. The novelty of the concept, the great gameplay, the vast number of tanks and maps, the endless ways in which a battle can take happen, the infinite replayability, the pseudo-realistic mechanics and physics and, why not, the free nature of the game conspired to make it one of the best games I've played in years.

Of course, not everyone is sold on it. Some people don't like the shooter genre. Some don't like tanks or the WWII setting. Some don't like playing online against others. And on and on. But from what I gather, World of Tanks has a huge worldwide gathering, especially in Russia where it is being developed. A reader informs me that it is actually developed in Belarus. My apologies.

One of the reasons why World of Tanks is so popular is the freemium business model. While other MMOs have started with a subscription model and then switched to freemium when they realized not a lot of people were playing them, World of Tanks was built around the concept of "free" from the get-go. In this aspect, my humble opinion is that it is really well designed. As a free player you have access to all the tank tiers (from 1 to 10) and all the maps. Other freemium games impose certain restrictions on how high you can go. Not this game. While paying customers can reach maximum level much faster, a free player can also get there, through patience and perseverance.

But here's the thing. There's a big chance that if you start out as a free player, even if you intend never to spend a cent on this game, you might find yourself voluntarily shelling out some cash at some point. The very thing happened to me. Though I spent a puny amount compared to hardcore players, I did show my appreciation to the developers by spending some money in the game. This is a good thing. A good game deserves compensation. The more people pay for it, the better the game becomes.

Let me tell you a story that enforces the above.

I'm an European living for many years in the US. I don't have any friends here who are gamers but back in Europe I know a bunch of hardcore nerds, just like me, who love PC games. One of them is a really good friend and we share a lot of interests but these aren't all the time identical. For example, we both love WoW and Diablo but he also likes games such as Dragon Age, The Witcher, Mass Effect. I don't like those but I like Borderlands and Glitch to give a couple of examples.

When I went to my home country on vacation last summer I demoed World of Tanks to my friend. It was easy: download the ~2GB client (very quick at European broadband speeds), install it, login with my username and password. I played a couple of battles for him and he showed some mild interest. I wasn't expecting him to really get into the game.

A few days later he told me that he had created an account and was now playing the game. I was like, woot! He had some initial frustrations with some of the gameplay but ended up being hooked by it. After I got back to the US he told me he was obsessed with the game. He'd even bought a subscription to it and had advanced along the American tank destroyer line farther than I had. Of course, I have a lot more tanks spread across many different lines but still...

So you see, World of Tanks can really grab you hard when you least expect it and it won't let go easily. There are, of course, players who have quit the game in frustration over one aspect or another. One of the main factors of contention is the matchmaker system which sometimes can pit you against tanks 3-4 tiers above you, where you don't stand much of a chance. I admit that the game is not perfect. But you know what? The version number says it is still in beta (currently version 0.6.7) and the devs are continually working on it, fixing bugs, improving mechanics and adding new tanks and maps.

I am not as obsessed with World of Tanks as I was at the beginning. These days I fire it up once every few days, or maybe a couple of times a week. Then again, I'm mostly playing Glitch. But when I do play it, it's almost therapeutic. I just love this game in so many ways. Even if I get raped two minutes into a battle, who cares? I will just load up another tank and perhaps win the next battle with 5 kills.

If you are undecided, if the genre mildly appeals to you, I urge you to try this game. You won't regret it and you might even end up addicted.

In closing, here's a screenshot of a recent glorious battle I fought in. Our team steamrolled the adversaries, with 13 kills on our side, 2 suicides on their side and 1 loss for us. My "Easy 8" Sherman was hanging by a thread at the end.

Glitch review

Glitch is one of those games that I would never have seen myself playing, the way I can't see myself ever playing Farmville. I heard about it by chance and seeing that it's a freemium MMO, I decided to give it a try. Surprisingly, I liked it a lot. It may not be as complex or involving as World of Warcraft but it has surprising depth.

At first impression, Glitch may look like a children's game, all done in Flash and with those cute and colorful graphics. Don't make that mistake because it is not. Even their FAQ specifies that you need to be minimum 14 to play and children between 14 and 17 need a parent's permission.

So what the heck is Glitch? First, Glitch is a browser based game made in Flash. Second, it's a weird sort of hybrid between an adventure game, a platform game and an MMO, or a cross between Farmville, Mario and World of Warcraft if you will, except that there's absolutely no violence in it (or at least none that I have discovered so far). Glitch is essentially billed as a "social" game, in that it actively encourages players to interact with each other and help one another. I'll get more into that later.

Glitch takes place in the strange realm of Ur, which is a world that exists only in the collective dream of 11 giants. If the premise seems fantastical, that's because it is. Throughout the game you'll come across numerous picturesque and so-very-strange landscapes, a world that only a fictional giant could dream. In the game, you play the role of a "glitch" which is essentially a denizen of this uncanny place.

You navigate the game by moving left or right, jumping up or down, just like in a platform game. The world is made up of various zones which usually share a common theme. You can view each zone as being the product of one giant's imagination. Apparently even the artists who designed them are different, so the graphic styles also differ from zone to zone.


Zones are further divided into streets with wacky names. All the action takes place on these streets. You explore the world by moving from street to street and zone to zone. Streets in the same zone share the same basic art style but zones vary from a desert setting to forests, highlands, bogs, a wintery place or two and other places which are very hard to define.


The goal in Glitch is to... Actually there is no goal and there is no end game. At least not like in games such as WoW. It's a sandbox game in that you are free to do whatever you want. As you first start the game, a short tutorial guides your steps until you start getting the hang of a few basic actions but from there on you are free to explore and advance at your own pace and in your own style.


Stats

A Glitch character does not have classic attributes like Strength, Intelligence and so on, but (s)he has a thing called "metabolics" which is a collection of several vital stats. These are Mood, Energy, Experience (and level) and Currants.

Before starting a new character you are given the option of customizing his/her appearance but this can be changed later at any point.

Mood is gained by performing various actions and it measures your general happiness. If you are happier you gain more XP and lose less energy. If you are not, the opposite happens. In my time playing Glitch I never had to worry about Mood. Since I perform a lot more actions which increase Mood than decrease it, I'm always extremely happy.


Energy is the most bothersome thing so far and that's because every action that you perform requires energy. In other games this is called "health" and when it drops to zero, you die. It's much harder to regain energy than it is to spend it, especially considering that energy slowly drains away even when you aren't doing anything. You can replenish it by eating, meditating and you get some of it back by completing quests. At the end of a game day (4 real-time hours) your energy will also be topped off.


Experience is generally gained by performing actions and completing quests. "Performing actions" includes a wide variety of things but I'll get into some of them later on. As you gain new levels your maximum energy and mood levels increase. That's good because you can perform more actions with one "fill up" as you level up. From what I can tell so far, there are no limits on how many levels you can have. I heard of a player reaching level 101 in the beta but I imagine that is very hard to accomplish with casual play.


Currants represents the game's currency. Think of it as "credits" or "gold" or "dollars". You gain credits in many ways: by completing quests, by selling items to vendors, by finding coins (just like in a platform game) or by selling stuff on the auction house. I will refer to them as "credits" henceforth, to prevent confusion.


Pet Rock

Your constant companion during your stay in Ur is a magic rock that you can access from the top of your gaming window. This rock gives you quests but more importantly learns skills for you.



Activities & Socializing

So what is there to do in Glitch? Lots of things. For starters, there's the exploration aspect. Initially you'll probably be overwhelmed by the plethora of streets and zones but all this is made easy with the help of a map and a "GPS mode" in which you can click on a destination and the game gives you turn-by-turn directions.

There are many strange and weird activities that you can engage in. You can, for example, pet and water trees for a boost to morale and XP but at the cost of energy. You can pet piggies which subsequently allow you to "nibble" them, giving you meat. You can hug chicken which gives you grain. You can massage butterflies with lotion, after which they allow you to milk them for, you guessed it, butterfly milk. Then you shake that milk transforming it into butter. Compressing it renders cheese. You can turn these various ingredients into food by using the correct tools (such as a Cutting Board or a Frying Pan). To use tools you also typically require the appropriate skill. But more on that later.

The same weird universe which makes chicken give you grain, also provides Egg Plant which are a type of tree which, when harvested, gives eggs. You can use your skills and the appropriate tool to transmute cherries into all kinds of fruit. You can also mine 4 different types of ore (which has further uses). Here's where a very nice social aspect of the game comes in. Mining is similar to WoW. A mineral node has several "charges" which you deplete by mining the node with your pick. Each charge takes about 10 seconds and yields a number of ores plus, occasionally, a precious gem. One or more players can also mine the same node, which depletes it quickly but gives each player a bonus based on how many people are mining the node at the same time. This is really cool because once a node is depleted, another one spawns nearby within a short period of time. So not only is "ninja-ing" permitted but it is actively encouraged and highly recommended.

I don't really socialize a lot in MMOs, as you all know, unless I need help with something. The Glitch community seems very helpful indeed. Just ask in general chat and someone is bound to help you. One instance where I needed help was when a quest required me to borrow a tool from another player. I needed another repair tool to repair my own repair tool. I know, recursive, right? At low levels those tools aren't exactly cheap so it takes a measure of trust to just hand that item to another player. Yet, that's exactly what happened: a guy offered to help me and we both got our stuff repaired.

That's about as far as I got with socializing but it feels like a very helpful and nice community. But then again, there aren't many ways in which to grief players. The only things which seem to deplete are mineral nodes (where you are rewarded for sharing with others) and coins which you grab by touching them, but coins respawn quickly anyway. (BTW, coins can give you energy, mood, credits and favor with the giants). Stuff that can be harvested, such as the various trees and animals, yields mats for each player separately so there's no fighting over resources. Typically resources from trees and animals can be harvested once a (game) day. Speaking of which...


How time flows in Glitch

In Glitch, one game day is the equivalent of 4 real-time hours. Moving to a new day does several things: it fills up your energy levels, it resets resources on trees and animals (though resources seem to replenish more often than that but it bears testing) and it resets your quota for various actions. For example, you are only allowed to collect a certain number of coins in a game day.

Days are grouped into months but what strage months they are! The shortest (Recurse) has only 1 day, while the longest (Fever) has 73 days. And their names are, well, judge for yourself. I lol @ them all the time.


Inventory

You start up with 16 item slots. Each slot can hold a bag, while bags can have 10 to 16 slots. This gives you a maximum of 256 item slots which is quite a lot.


Skills

Skills are what gives even more depth to Glitch. They are a collection of passives and actives and essentially open up the world to you. While at the beginning you might be limited in what you can do in the world, learning a skill or three starts to open your horizons. You can cook a myriad different recipes, plant and harvest your own crops, grow your own farm animals, buy your own house (more on that later), mine, teleport, dabble in alchemy and engineering and loads of other stuff. The devs also add new skills in time.

Remember the pet rock? The skills in Glitch are learned one at a time but the rock does all the learning for you, in real time. Level 1 of a skill might take, say, 10 minutes. The next level might take 35, the next 2 hours, the next 8 hours while the last one can take a few days. The cool thing is that you can play the game or logout during the time a skill is being learned because the rock does the learning for you! You can even check on your progress from the browser window, without entering the game world. While it is perfectly possible to learn all the skills in the game, it's all a matter of time. The more skills you learn, the longer it takes for subsequent skills to be learned. For example, if skill A can be learned in 1 hour with 0 total skills learned, the same skill might take 1 day with 30 skills learned. But then there's a skill called Better Learning (which has 5 levels) which increases the number of total skills you can learn before receiving a time penalty. So far, the longest skill I've had to learn took me over 4 days. But that's ok because at this point I have learned over 35 skills which allow me to do almost everything in game, albeit not efficiently all the time.

Housing

Glitch is one of those few MMOs which provide housing for players. This is done via instanced housing districts. There are districts scattered throughout the different zones and each district has a certain type of house. Some are cute cottages, others are tree houses, others are apartments in highrises, some are underground hovels while yet others are sprawling mansions. Homes range in price from 1500 credits to 50,000 credits. For my first home, bought around level 11 or so, I paid 4000. It's located in a mountainous area, with living quarters underground and a garden topside.

Houses offer several things. First, there's a storage area with additional slots which varies depending on the price of the home. Then there's a trophy case, which apparently displays your "trophies" on a shelf but I still have to find a use for that.

Then, each house has at least a small garden plot, as well as patches where you can plant trees. This means that you can plant, tend and harvest crops in the privacy of your own home. You can also keep animals and there's a whole system for collecting meat and milk from them automatically, which I have yet to explore.

Achievements

Glitch has a zillion achievements associated with all the actions you might perform in the game. The fun thing is that thresholds are seemingly random. For example you might get an achievement for petting 111 trees, or for milking 87 butterflies. So there's no round number like 100, 1000 and so on. Achievements are not meaningless either: they all give you experience and favor so it's both fun and practical to reach a new milestone.



Favor and the gods

The "gods" in glitch are represented by the 11 giants. They each have shrines spread out randomly on streets, one shrine per street. You can build favor (or reputation) with the giants by donating items to their shrines, by completing quests and through various other means. I won't go into many details why it's important to cultivate favor with this guys, suffice to say that it's worth it. One good reason is that each skill is associated with a primary giant and two secondary giants. You can't progress past a certain skill level if you don't build up favor sufficiently with the patron giant.



Trading and auction house

Like in most MMOs, trading can be done directly by handing an item to another player, through an in-game mail system and via an auction house. I haven't done a lot of person-to-person trading but I have used the auction house to buy, but mostly to sell stuff. It works well and it has a "live search" function where it narrows down results as you type something. Furthermore, it groups results based on the items which match your query and then you can drill into the specific item where you can see the price per unit as well as the price per stack.

Death

Death in Glitch occurs when you run out of energy. That's why you need to keep an eye on your energy level. Still, death is very forgiving. You end up in Purgatory where you have to squash grapes a few times until "they" let out. If you use the keyboard to do this, instead of the mouse, it's just a matter of hitting Enter over and over again (thanks to the context-sensitive menus) while moving over the grapes. When you get revived you get about 15 energy so you won't last long if you don't eat immediately.


Other stuff

From what I understand, the world is not static. New zones and streets are continued to be built, by the players themselves. There are communal events where players can contribute mats to build a new street. This is akin to the opening of the gates of AQ in WoW.

One particular street is winter-themed. The temperature is so low that your energy (essentially your life force) drops continually while there. I had to go there for a quest and it provided a frantic change of pace.

There are random events which award you with random items, as well as keys that you can find which unlock special areas filled with goodies. I have found a few keys but have yet to visit one of those areas.

My goals

I have a few simple goals that I wish to achieve. I continue to learn new skills even though it's becoming increasingly difficult. I aim to learn every skill that is useful to me. Then, I want to make enough credits to buy the most expensive home (50,000). I currently have over 20,000 credits at level 17. After that? I don't know but I'm sure I'll find stuff to do.


Conclusion

There are many aspects of Glitch that I have omitted or haven't discovered yet. Sometimes I get bored with the game and take a few days off. It doesn't matter because I can keep learning my skills while I'm away.

I haven't even discussed the paid portion of the game. As far as I'm concerned I don't find any use for any of the stuff offered by paying. You get more character customization options, including cosmetic stuff that you can buy, as well as teleportation tokens which allow you to teleport anywhere in the world but I'm happy the way things are without paying.

One thing that annoys me a little is the energy issue. Almost everything you do eats your energy. To replenish it you need to eat. To eat, you need to cook (which uses energy) stuff that you have gathered (which uses energy) or buy food (with credits obtained from other activities which require energy). Even this problem is beginning to fade as I gain levels and learn new skills. That's because upgraded skills allow me to perform various actions at a lower energy cost, while gaining levels gives me a bigger energy pool (which gets replenished daily or when I level up again).

While Glitch might not be everyone's cup of tea, it's a refreshing (and non-violent) change from games such as WoW or World of Tanks. I started skeptical but soon grew to love it. I highly recommend it.

I caved in, bought gold

Whoa there, before you all blast me, I'm not talking about WoW! Just to make myself clear (for the 1000th time), I am against buying WoW gold and I believe it trivializes the game anyway. Having gotten this out of the way...

The game I bought gold for is... you've probably guessed it... World of Tanks!

The way gold works in WoT is not that obvious from the beginning. In fact, considering that the game is free to play and it offers pretty much the entire tech tree and all the maps regardless of whether you pay or not, you can theoretically play through all the 10 tiers of tanks without spending a (real) dollar.

The catch is that it becomes harder and harder to gain XP and credits (the game's currency) as the tiers go by. By tier 6 it takes a very long time to gain all the necessary XP to upgrade a tank with the best equipment and even more so to move on to the next tier.

World of Tanks has an interesting XP system. Each tank gains XP individually but at the same time, 5% of that experience is saved separately in a "Free Experience" pool which means it can be used by any other tank. Experience is used to research upgrades. Credits are used to buy those upgrades after they are researched.

Once a tank researches all the possible upgrades, it continues to earn XP but that XP is now worthless for this particular tank. You can choose to turn off XP in return for accelerated crew training. But isn't the remaining XP now lost forever? Not quite. That's where the gold comes in.

World of Tanks has such an innovative F2P model that it got me (I'm a notorious tight-fist) to spend money to enjoy the game even more, after only 2 weeks of playing it. For $30 (2 months of WoW) I bought 6500 gold.

Here's what I used the gold for:

1) I converted the remaining XP for tanks which I had either sold (yes, you can still recover the XP from those tanks), or for tanks which had become elite (all upgrades researched) to Free XP. I used that Free XP to research some upgrades badly needed for one of my tier 5 tanks.

2) I trained the crew to 100% for one of my favorite tanks (a Marder II Tank Destroyer if you are curious) and also for my tier 5 tank (a Panzer IV Medium Tank).

3) I might buy an extra garage slot later.

4) I might purchase a 1-month premium account, which allows me to gain XP and credits at a 50% increased rate.

5) Finally, I might buy a premium tank which allows me to farm credits because it is cheap to repair and automatically makes 50% more credits from battles due to its premium status. Unfortunately this tank costs about $40 in real money so I'm a bit on the fence on that.

Was it worth it? Here's a short analysis of each of the above points.

1) Converting XP is relatively cheap. Since having a lot of XP sitting around on other elite tanks doing nothing is not going to help, I consider it a very good thing to be able to transfer that XP to tanks which need it desperately. As a result, I was able to more quickly research the upgrades my Panzer IV needed in order to not suck so badly in combat. Now, the tank is competitive and a blast to play.

2) Initially I was skeptical about training the crew. A new tank starts with a crew at 50% training, unless you are willing to pay a lot of credits to train them to 100%. Problem is, it becomes progressively harder to reach that 100% as you get closer to it.

The quick solution is to spend 200 gold to train each crew member. That's about $1. A tank with a crew of 5 will cost $5 to train to 100%.

First, I trained the crew of 3 for my Marder II Tank Destroyer. The vehicle already had all the upgrades and it was performing well. Let me just say this: the first battle after buying 100% training, I killed 7 enemies (out of a total of 15). My previous record had been 4.

 On top of that, I also won a very wacky medal (it's just like a WoW achievement), for killing the last enemy with my last shell. Hah! Now that's something you don't see every day!

The other tank I trained crew to 100% is my Panzer IV, a Medium with high firepower (when upgraded to the max). Was it worth it in this case? Hell yeah! My tank performs to the top of it's abilities now and is an armored machine of death (at least until it gets spotted).

Why is 100% crew skill so important? Because at 100% crew training every stat on the tank is worth 100%. Crew also aims faster, more accurately, drives better, repairs damage in combat quicker, puts out fires quicker, spots enemies from a farther distance and so on. After 100% you have the option to further specialize each crew member in a number of skills such as camouflage, repair and firefighting. But you can only start specializing once you reach 100%. And if you don't pay for that 100%, it will take ages until you get there.

3) More garage slots are good if you like playing with several different tanks. I already have tier 2 and 4 tanks which I enjoy playing, in addition to the tier 5 and the Tank Destroyer. I would also like to try my hand at SPGs (Self Propelled Guns, or mobile artillery) at some point. Problem is, garage space is limited. The only way you can increase it is either by buying more slots or by selling some of your tanks. It's almost a given that I will fork some gold (300 per) for an extra slot or two.

4) A premium account allows you to earn 50% extra XP and credits from battles. This will simply allow me to progress 50% quicker. Otherwise it doesn't give me a tactical advantage. I'm not sure I'll try it for more than a month though.

5) A premium tank is good for farming credits because these tanks are already fully upgraded (no need to research/buy new equipment), repairs on them are very cheap and these tanks earn 50% more credits than a normal tank of that tier. The only problem is that the nicest such tank, a German Heavy named Löwe costs about $40 in real money. I'm not so sure I want to spend so much money on one tank at this point but it is certainly a possibility for later. First, I'll see how the premium account works, but only after I get back from a short vacation.

There are other ways in which to spend your gold. For example you can buy some premium consumables (such as first aid or repair kits) or premium ammo (only useful in tournaments, unless you're swimming in cash and don't mind shooting real dollars each time your gun fires) but these are of no interest to me.

In conclusion, is it worth buying at least a little bit of gold in World of Tanks? From my point of view, the answer is a resounding YES! Not only does it help make the game more enjoyable by cutting down on some of the grind, but it also helps support the developers who made such an enjoyable and involving game.

Clarification about World of Tanks

There are two things that I forgot to mention about World of Tanks. These are only for the benefit of those who haven't tried the game yet and are tempted.

First, just to make it clear, each player controls one tank. This is not an RTS so you're not in command of a tank squadron. Your "avatar" is your tank but you can own several tanks in your garage. You can only take one tank out at any one time.

Second, I like the way they implemented dying. After your tank is destroyed, you are out of the game. Here, you have two options. You can either stay in battle until the end and switch your view between the remaining allied tanks by clicking the mouse buttons. Or, you can choose to leave the battle. Leaving the battle is cool when you're not playing with friends because you don't have to waste time until the end. Don't worry though, you won't lose any experience or credits by doing so! The awesome thing is that you can go to your garage, pick another tank and join a new battle while the previous one is still in progress. When each battle is over you will get a summary of the outcome, plus your credit and XP earnings and any metals that you might have earned.

That's all I wanted to say.

World of Tanks blitz review

I never thought I would see myself getting into an online PvP game but here I am, talking about World of Tanks. If you've been reading my blog for a while you are probably aware that I hate PvP in World of Warcraft. It's just not my thing. Games like Counterstrike? Bring it on!

I'd heard about World of Tanks vaguely but what attracted me was the fact that the game is Free To Play (F2P) and it has tanks. I kind of enjoy the World War II setting so I thought that since it's free, I might as well give it a try.

World of Tanks is a simple game taken at face value. Essentially there's only one game mode: capture the enemy base. You can also win the game by destroying all enemy tanks or by attrition after the 15 minute timer expires. Under the skin, however, lies a very complex combat simulator which revolves heavily around physics, line of sight, camouflage, terrain configuration and so on.

The best way to play World of Tanks is with friends, because you can get everyone to implement a common strategy. For lack of friends (as in my case), the game creates battles between evenly matched groups of 15 players. This mode pits together tanks which are roughly in the same class, so you won't ever get tier 1 light tanks with tier 8 heavy tanks.

I have only played World of Tanks for three days but I'm already hooked. I've only gotten so far as a level 2 light tank but I want to persevere until I can upgrade to something nicer.

There are two resources in the game: credits and XP. Both are gained in battle but you can lose a game and still win plenty of them. XP is gained in lots of cool ways, for example based on the damage you do to enemies but also on the number of enemies spotted and many other ways that I haven't yet discovered.

Strategy plays a large part in World of Tanks and I have a lot of learning to do. I have already had some glorious battles, including one where I helped capture the enemy base with only 2 "health points" left (out of 90). Scouting plays an important part in the game, as well as protecting slower tanks, spotting enemy tanks for the heavy artillery and also sniping.

Playing the game is fun but if you want to advance, you either need to play a crapload of games (because XP and credits come slow), or buy gold. Gold is a resource that can only be bought with real cash and it can be used in various ways. You can use it to buy XP or credits, or in exchange for various other benefits such as an extra slot in the garage.

Here's where I'm starting to really appreciate that this is a F2P game. I can enjoy it without paying, or, if I want to progress quicker, I can go ahead and spend some cash. I'm very tempted to do that in fact, except that I find it harder to explain to my wife that I need to buy "gold" for some game than to pay a monthly subscription (as with WoW). To be fair, World of Tanks does have a monthly subscription but I'm not yet clear as to what benefits that brings.

The graphics are very good and the game runs well on my machine which is about 2-3 years old. The sounds are also good but I'm starting to wonder whether all the guns sound the same. The game client itself is lightweight for this day and age, at only 1.8GB.

I'm afraid I haven't been entirely coherent with this review but give me a break, ok? :) I'm a little bit stoked after discovering such a cool new game. And you know what? The game hasn't even reached version 1.0. Talk about innovative.

SW:TOR starting to look good

I'm sure many World of Warcraft players are excited at the idea of the new Star Wars: The Old Republic game but I didn't think I would be one of them. After quitting WoW I figured that I won't be getting back into another MMO soon, if ever.

I have also been very skeptical of SW:TOR because, let's face it, it's highly unlikely that another game will manage to dethrone WoW. Besides, how many "WoW-killers" have already flopped? Too many to count.

Well, I'm not saying that I've suddenly become a big SW:TOR fan but I do happen to be a big Star Wars fan. And just for the record, I hate episodes 1,2,3. I'm old school like that. Anyhoo, looking at some of the more recent previews of SW:TOR, I've started getting a longing for a different kind of universe than WoW.

There are two major universes that I absolutely love in games and in fiction: the fantasy setting (like JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings) and the science fiction setting (like Star Wars and Star Trek). So far I've gotten my fill of orcs-and-elves fantasy. WoW was great but I really miss some high-tech action with lasers and spaceships.

I was indifferent to The Old Republic MMO because it seemed a bit shallow to tell the truth. I still don't think it will have the depth of WoW and I don't think it will be updated with new content (to keep it fresh) as often as WoW. Bioware simply does not have Blizzard's resources, though they are themselves pretty resourceful.

What suddenly piqued my interest in SW:TOR was the mention of space battles and the short clip I saw which shows some promising space combat. If a Star Wars game features ground-based combat only, in my eyes it fails. Throw in personal spaceships and space battles and you might have a winner.

One of the minor things that bug me in SW:TOR is Tatooine. I admit that I'm not a book of knowledge in regards to the Star Wars Universe but why the hell does Tatooine have to feature in every damn SW game? What's so special about that backwater dump of a planet? Yeah, I know what they are doing: they're just trying to keep things familiar by re-hashing all the usual locales: Tatooine, Alderaan, Corellia and so on, but sometimes I wonder if there are only a handful of habitable planets in the whole universe. Oh well, just a minor nitpick.

You know what else I adore in Star Wars? The unforgettable sound of lasers. Pew pew pew! That sound is unmistakable and makes me lust for a blaster.

At this point I don't have any way of knowing how good SW:TOR will actually be. Will it satisfy my urge of firing lasers and flying fast ships? Will it feel like I'm immersed in the Star Wars Universe? We can only wait and find out. If both SW:TOR and Diablo 3 are released this year though, I fear that one of them will have a strong competitor, as far as I'm concerned, and we all know which one it is.

Buh-bye WoW, hello Diablo 3!

If you've seen the gaming news today, you might have read something like this article which mentions Blizzard's earnings call. Two things were of major interest to me.

First, there's this little matter regarding World of Warcraft's subscriptions which dropped by 600K after Cataclysm. While this isn't very surprising to me, it still feels strange that after such a major and successful expansion a lot of people still reached the burnout point so quickly.

I will come clean: I am one of those 600K. I've been slowly slipping away from WoW to the point where I'm not playing it anymore, I don't care about it anymore and I find unlikely that I will ever return. These feelings are really weird because Cataclysm was everything I dreamed of in WoW: a revamped Azeroth and flying throughout the old continents! Unfortunately, all these enhancements don't change the fact that every WoW expansion is the same 'ol, same 'ol as the previous one.

It might be that we're starting to see the first signs of WoW's inevitable decline. It won't happen abruptly. But I can see how Blizzard will find it harder and harder to keep old players in and at the same time attract new ones. Don't worry though, I'm sure this decline will be so gradual that we won't even realize it. In fact, I won't be surprised if WoW will still be online 10 years from now. It's just that good. But sometimes the same formula repeated just won't cut it.

Myself, I still follow WoW news loosely and watch patch information, I still post articles on this blog (on more general topics rather than particulars) and I also run BankAlt.com which is my pet WoW project (check it out if you haven't). So I'm still connected to the Warcraft universe and I will likely remain connected for a long time even if I'm not actively playing.

The second thing from Blizzard's conference that I found significant is the fact that they are "working hard to release Diablo 3 in 2011". I know that this isn't a guarantee that we'll be able to play Diablo 3 in its final version this year but after 10 years of waiting I can finally be confident that in a worst case scenario I'll be able to play it within a year. If I'm lucky, I might even get a beta invite sooner, and from what Blizzard is saying, a public beta is slated to be opened some time between July and September.

Diablo 3 might as well be one of the reasons that drew me away from WoW. I mean, the closer we get to a public beta (and subsequently to a launch), the less desire I feel towards WoW. And it's only fitting, because part of the attraction of World of Warcraft, back when I started playing, was that it offered a pseudo-substitute to the Diablo universe.

WoW obviously has several things in common with Diablo, both games being about improving your character by gaining levels, learning new skills and finding new and more powerful gear. The similarities end here because WoW is a much more involved game, starting with the MMO aspect, not to mention that very often powerful gear is not so random since it can be obtained with emblems and so on.

I am willing to be patient in regard to Diablo 3. I've been waiting for it for so long that another year (or less) feels like nothing at this point, especially with the beta in sight. I'm just a bit wary of the many ways in which Blizzard could still screw the pooch on this one. I'm scared about the DRM they might implement and I'm scared about the game being based around online play. And then I'm scared about a dozen other small things. I won't lie to you: it's unlikely that I will jump to buy Diablo 3 from the first day. I'll keep my impatience in check for a few days or a couple of weeks until I can see some good reviews. If they mess this one up, I will regretfully have to pass on it. Still, despite my fears, I'm generally optimistic. It's Blizzard we're talking about, after all.

If Diablo 3 is released this year, or even very early in 2012, this might give extra validity to this Blizzard release schedule that was "leaked" some time ago. And if that chart turns out to be true, there's a lot to look forward to from Blizzard, in just a few years: 2 more Diablo expansions, 2 more World of Warcraft expansions, some more StarCraft stuff (in which I'm not interested), as well as their secret new MMO.

Minecraft, the craft of mining

"Dig dig dig build build build" is the mantra in Minecraft, the indie game that has taken the internet by storm for almost 2 years now. Initially I was going to write a post called "WTF is Minecraft" because up until a few days ago I really had no idea why the hell this game was so popular.

I've been hearing on and off about it for a long time but after seeing glimpses of its 8-bit-like graphics my interest never flared, up until last week when I read this article about how Minecraft's dev, originally a single guy, later 2 guys and currently a small team of about 5 people, made an estimated $32 million in sales. And the damn game is still in beta!

So I thought to myself, if so many geeks are playing this game, there must be something to it. (Note: this line of reasoning doesn't apply to Facebook, Angry Birds, Farmville and other similar rubbish)

I fired up Youtube, watched a few gameplay videos, including this totally awesome fan-made music trailer and, after trying the game out for myself, I was hooked.



A couple of days later, I'm addicted. WoW? What's WoW? This is the new WoW.

It's nothing like WoW, of course. What it is, is a sandbox game which generates a random world composed from tiles (cubes rather) arranged in a grid. An enormous grid. It allows you to "dig" through the ground, through trees, essentially almost any type of material which makes up the world, collect those mats and then use them to build anything your imagination can conceive.

I am over-simplifying because there are 2 versions of the game: Classic which is free and Beta (lol) which is paid. At $20 I've already got my money's worth for the countless hours I've played. Classic gives you unlimited materials and you can just focus on building stuff, while in Beta you need to collect those mats yourself by digging and, if you so choose, you can make the game harder by enabling monsters which come out at night in dark places. By monsters I mean, of course, zombies and skeletons.

While Classic might sound like the better way to play, Beta is a lot more fun because it gets you to dig. And digging, for me at least, is tons of fun. You can dig a long way down, but not forever. There's a set distance between sea level and bedrock, which is several layers of impenetrable tiles.

To dig, you need some tools which you can create by combining various mats in patterns in a 3x3 crafting cube. The patterns are a genius idea. If you want an axe, you can arrange some sticks and stone/iron/etc in a shape resembling an axe and you get your axe. Again, I'm over-simplifying but I just wanted to give an idea of how crafting works.

While digging, you'll come across various minerals, some more precious than others. You can find coal (useful for making torches which light up the dark), iron ore (useful for making tools among other things), and diamonds which are the subject of the video I linked above. It seems that everybody is looking for diamonds because they're very rare and they make the best tools/weapons/armor.

Once you start digging, it's hard to stop. You will end up creating vast hallways, immense chambers and deep shafts. You will discover random caves, underground water streams and lakes, and dangerous lava. Digging in Minecraft is a perpetual journey of discovery. In my short time in the game I've dug a huge shaft all the way to bedrock, with a winding spiral staircase along the inside walls and a center pillar which goes all the way from top to bottom and has a ladder for quick access. Now I'm concentrating on strip-mining at the bottom of the shaft, in search of diamonds.

On the surface, I've built a huge tower, with a winding staircase, all the way to the clouds. From there, I've created skyways to various sections of my island.

Building stuff in Minecraft is cool thanks to the game's physics and the way various blocks interact. Most blocks just "stick" to each other when placed together. They don't need any support from below once you've placed them. This allows you to build the craziest stuff you can imagine. I saw a video on Youtube of a full-scale model of the starship Enterprise created by a guy with a lot of talent but also too much free time on his hands.

There's a lot more to Minecraft than what I managed to summarize here. A huge online community produces mods, hosts multiplayer servers, creates texture packs and other stuff. The randomly generated world looks strangely beautiful in all its Legoland-like glory. The blockiness and low-res textures are features, not negatives. I would suspect the graphics allow Minecraft to run on even the lowest-spec machines.



After a few days I'm hopelessly addicted to Minecraft. WoW is the farthest thing on my mind right now, sorry about that WoW fans. I'm curious how long my new obsession will last. I just want to build crazy stuff and burrow deep into the earth like a demented dwarf, so sue me.

Minecraft shows that an independent designer can really strike it rich with simple, yet /deep/ gameplay. It also emphasizes - and this is especially poignant in this day and age - that graphics aren't everything in a game. If the gameplay is kick-ass, it will more than make up for the lack of modern graphics. People-complaining-about-WoW's-graphics I'm looking at you! How long this Minecraft thing will last, no one knows. All I know is, it's a lot of fun, and now I'm off to dig dig dig and build build build some more!

Rift blitz review

Over the weekend I've been playing a little Rift. You know, the WoW "clone". I received a 3-day invite from Paul Gillett, so once again, thank you very much Paul! If it hadn't been for your invitation, I wouldn't have tried this game.

Rift marks the 3rd MMORPG I've tried, first being, of course, World of Warcraft. The second one, which I never mentioned here before, was LOTRO (Lord of the Rings Online), a few months before it went F2P (Free to Play). My conclusion back then was that LOTRO wasn't worth playing even for free.

Rift, on the other hand, seems to be on the right track. Let me get one thing out of the way: my limited time with this game left me with the powerful feeling that it is WoW with a different skin. I will try to elaborate on this farther on.

There is little doubt that Rift is a modern MMO. From what I've heard, it launched without major hitches, except perhaps a few balancing issues here and there. In my limited time with the game, I did not experience any bugs or other problems. The game feels solid but it has already had a few patches to fix glitches.

The feeling that this is an almost-carbon-copy clone of WoW was strong throughout my experience. Some things are different, of course. The way you create a character, for example. It's cool that you can play around with your new character's facial features and I especially appreciate that you can vary you avatar's height. Too bad you can't change their body type: fat-thin.

In WoW I don't like playing female characters but I thought I would give them a whirl in Rift. And I think I fell in love. These have got to be the sexiest looking females in any game I've ever seen. The models have a high polygon count and it shows! Call me a perv but for the first few levels I took off these ladies' clothes just so I can stare at their perfectly sculpted bodies. If a dwarf chick can look like this... then I want to be a dwarf!!

Seems like I got sidetracked there for a bit. Anyhoo, Rift's graphics in general don't seem that much better than WoW's but character and NPC models are more detailed. WoW has had incremental graphics updates over the years and it has aged very well, however, its visuals are more cartoonish, while Rift's are more... realistic. One thing that I can say for certain WoW does better is the water.

There are 2 opposing factions in Rift: Alliance and Hor... I mean Guardians and Defiants. I didn't pay attention to any of the story so I don't know what the deal is with these factions but they each have 3 races. The Guardians (good guys I believe) have humans (only they're called something else), elves and dwarves. The other guys have some other type of humans, some sort of dark elves and some sort of barbarian humanoids.

Each race has 2 racial abilities, one active, one passive. The passive ones are usually a resistance of some sort. The barbarian-type bad guys have an interesting active ability on a short cooldown which allows them to jump a fair distance so that makes it easier to move around until you get a mount.

There are only 4 main classes (only they're called "callings"): warrior, cleric, rogue and mage. Each of these classes can access up to 3 "souls" which are essentially skill trees. While the skill system is different than WoW's, I can see what they did here.

In WoW, say, you have a hunter which has 3 trees: beast mastery, marksmanship and survival. In Rift, you pick 1 tree to start off with, after a few quests you can pick another tree to add to your existing one and later you get a 3rd tree. In Rift,  instead of WoW's 3 trees per class you get 8 + 1 (PvP). However, these 8 trees are what you would get in WoW if you pooled together several classes. For example, Rift's rogue class has similar trees that a hunter and a rogue would have in WoW. So you just mix and match them. You can be a marksman (using ranged weapons) and a saboteur (using explosive devices) and an assassin (using stealth), all at the same time.

While this may seem revolutionary and/or really cool, in practice I found it rather annoying because you end up spreading yourself too thin. This is compounded by the fact that the game doesn't allow you to allocate too many "talents" into a tree until you've leveled some more. So if you have leftover points, you will have to put them in a secondary tree.

In the end, the system is similar to WoW's, except that it's done backwards. I found that I wasn't using the active skills that came with a secondary tree. As a side note, as you allocate more "talents" into a particular tree, skills are automatically unlocked for that tree. So at 2 talents you get a new skill, at 6 another, at 8 another and so on.

There are so many similarities between Rift and WoW that it's hard to know where to begin. I think the best indication is when all the controls are so identical that it feels I'm playing WoW. Rift even has an authenticator and a launcher. The shortcuts are the same, the window elements are the same, even the emotes are the same!

If it ain't broke, don't fix it, right? The makers of Rift have certainly got this because they have unashamedly mimicked many of WoW's best features, and even its control scheme, perhaps to attract some of the veteran MMO's clientele but also as a way to avoid re-inventing the wheel.

This can be both a blessing and a curse. WoW fans will get into Rift in no time at all. My learning curve was almost zero. On the other hand there's this persistent sense of deja-vu, which might cause some players to ask themselves whether they are still in WoW.

While the visuals are good, I can't say I was overly impressed. The Guardian starting zone looked like any other generic RPG zone, with green grass, hills and trees. The buildings do seem more polished than in WoW and so do the friendly NPCs. The enemies, however, weren't very impressive: just your garden variety goblins, dark elves, ghosts, skeletons, wolves, bears and so on. I must mention that I didn't tweak the graphics settings at all; I just let the game decide.

The quests are rather boring and most of them are of the usual "kill 10 rats" variety. In general, they require you to kill stuff, gather stuff, speak to an NPC, activate stuff in a certain area, loot stuff from bodies and so on. As a result, I didn't spend one second reading the quest text. Luckily, Rift has very nice quest tracking features, complete with way-points which guide you to the quest location.

Unfortunately the demo only allows you to reach level 15, which I attained in 8 hours. I played a marksman with ranger and saboteur sub-specs, which means I was a ranged damage dealer with a pet and also some explosives (which got neglected). Pets seem rather lackluster, in that you can't tame wild animals. Instead, your skills dictate what pet you get. This might change later but I didn't get the chance to test it.

One thing that Rift does better than WoW is that it allows you to learn 3 professions. On the other hand it doesn't have secondary professions but the advantage here is that you can learn all 3 gathering professions: essentially mining, herbalism and skinning. Herbalism is actually called "scavenging" (it also lets you gather wood) and skinning is called "butchering" (you can also collect various animal body parts).

I found it funny that things which are the same thing as WoW are called something else in Rift. For example vitality is called "endurance", agility is called "dexterity", instead of gold/silver/copper there's platinum/gold/silver, reputation is called "notoriety", battlegrounds are called "warfronts" and on and on. I'm surprised guilds aren't called something different.

Mounts are done in a slightly different way. It seems that there's really no minimum level for getting a basic mount (60% increased speed), and the only requirement is to have enough money. The cheapest one was around 2 platinum 50 gold, which took me all of 8 hours to acquire, thanks in no small part to the fact that trial accounts cannot sell stuff on the auction house. I had to make my money by vendoring everything I found and/or gathered or got from quests and monsters.

Rift's innovation is, of course, rifts. Rifts are tears in the fabric between dimensions which allow various elemental types to invade. They occur randomly throughout the world and players have the option of closing them when encountered, by defeating the monsters which pour out of them. There's a cool system in place which allows you to join a public group on the fly, once you get close enough to a rift. You just click a button called "Join public group" and bam, you're in a group.

Rifts spew increasingly difficult waves of monsters and after defeating each wave you can click a small icon in your rift window to get your reward. Rewards are for the most part in the form of tokens (think emblems) which can be exchanged for various items from special vendors.

Apart from rifts, there also seem to be random invasions of the various quest hubs and cities by large groups of monsters. I found it a lot of fun to join these groups of defenders on the fly and kick monster ass. There's also a type of public quest which becomes active when these invasions occur, though I haven't had time enough to figure out how they work.

I barely got a taste of Rift but I generally liked what I saw. This game felt leagues ahead of LOTRO and certainly more polished. Too bad there isn't an interesting story behind it. Or maybe there is and I didn't have time to look for it in the limited time I played. Rift made me curious to find out more about the other zones I haven't discovered yet, to get to max level and to explore what else it has to offer. I don't even know what the max level is (I assume it's 60), nor how dungeons work or how PvP is done. I don't have any interest in PvP anyway.


Finally, the question which begs asking is this: is Rift worth playing? If you're sick of WoW to the gills but want a game which is both familiar and new, and you don't mind paying the full retail price ($50) for the game client in addition to the $15 monthly subscription, then Rift is certainly a worthy proposition. In fact it is probably the best non-WoW MMORPG at the moment, at least until the Star Wars MMO comes out.

I am grateful for having had the opportunity to play this great new MMO. However, I still feel that WoW is the more mature game, with greater content and infinitely better lore and story. And I won't even mention everything that I have invested in WoW: all the high level characters, all the played time, all the gold. Starting a whole new complex MMO from scratch is a daunting task but not outside the realm of imagination. At some later date, when I am completely bored with WoW, when I have sufficient spare time and when the Rift client will be sold at a hefty discount, I may yet give it another try. And when that happens, I can already tell you that I will like it.

P.S. Here's some more sexy (hide the kids first)!

Torchlight demo review

A while back I was getting excited about two new games: Torchlight and Borderlands. Recently I had the chance to sample Torchlight by playing the 2-hour demo that the developer offers.

Torchlight is a very cool concept because not only is it made by some of the people who created Diablo 1 and 2 but it also introduces a very interesting business model. The team who makes Torchlight (Runic Games) was formed from the remnants of the ill-fated Flagship Studios who were responsible for Hellgate: London and Mythos. In fact Torchlight is a sort of Mythos on steroids since it was built from the ashes of that game, which was never released.

A few words about this new business model that I was mentioning. These guys from Runic Games had the remarkable achievement of creating an entire game almost from scratch in about 18 months and then releasing it through digital distribution for only $20. A perfect Diablo clone for only $20. In my book that's an awesome way to do business. One of the reasons why I stopped buying games is that there hasn't been a genuinely great game that I felt was worth my $50. For me, Diablo 2 was one of the last games that really gave back a lot more than it cost.

I was very excited to get my hands on Torchlight, especially after all the reviews that I'd read, enthusing over every aspect of this new game. I was just about to pay for my copy of the game when Runic Studios released their free 2-hour demo. I decided I was gonna try the demo first, just to see what all the fuss is about. After all, I was going to buy the game anyway.

It was a good thing I tried the demo first. It saved me $20. Incredulous as it may sound, and despite all the excitement that I felt for this game, I'm sad to say that Torchlight disappointed me. All 2 hours of it. Let me try to explain.

I picked a Vanquisher, which is basically a ranged character. I don't understand why they choose to pick this name for a class, because "vanquisher" doesn't tell me anything about how the class plays. It could be anything from a melee to a ranged to a magic class. Anyway, I wanted to play with guns because guns are indeed plentiful in Torchlight.

The first disappointment came from the fact that there doesn't seem to be any difference between how a bow, a crossbow and a gun function. They feel identical and their stats are identical. I admit that there isn't much difference in WoW either, between these types, but to me they feel different.

One of the biggest negatives of Torchlight was the graphics. The game was touted to be very optimized and quick, running on very low-end PCs, including netbooks. That is indeed true, the interface feels snappy enough and the gameplay doesn't slow even for a fraction of a second but the loading screens were too long for my taste. Diablo 2 for example loads instantly on my machine and yes, I know it is a very old game but there's no reason why Torchlight, which doesn't exactly sport Crysis-like graphics, should load so slowly. Apparently it's something to do with the size of each level but whatever.

I tried to like the graphics, I really did, but I couldn't. Everything, from the interface to the characters, to the monsters and the weapons, is blocky. Big, hulking graphics that in a way look cute but feel annoying. Cartoony but not in a good way. WoW feels very advanced in comparison. To me, it felt like a kids' game.

I didn't like the interface either. I hated the way the character panel and inventory slid into the screen. I'm not a big fan of the font that was used throughout the game, which is another example of blockiness. Massive font, better suited to Zuma than Diablo. There's simply no graphic finesse to be had in Torchlight.

As for the weapons and items, they were lackluster. Drop after drop after drop of magic items but they all looked the same and felt the same. Minor variations in stats. Nothing to write home about. Yeah, I only played for 2 hours but I can't imagine playing longer than that. I doubt "epics" would make me reconsider. The weapons looked blocky, cartoony and not very appealing.

The monsters, once again, were blocky. You're probably tired by now of hearing this word but I swear that's what everything felt to me. Sadly, I can't say more about the monsters because they weren't memorable. There's nothing that I remember about them. Oh wait. I kinda liked the skeleton models but I'm sure small kids would also love with them. I don't know if that's a positive thing.

The levels... well, I can't say much about them either because the only level type I've experienced was the mine. Just a regular mine with several levels. You pass through each level killing monsters and then you find the portal to the next level. A very arcade-like experience. Some levels in Diablo 2 were similar, for example the Catacombs, where you'd go down through similar textures for 3-4 levels but I have a feeling Torchlight is entirely built around this system. Yes, as far as I'm aware, the whole game revolves around underground dungeons.

The biggest negative came from the "feel" of the game. It's very hard to define but something didn't click for me. I hated the way the character moved when I clicked a spot. I hated how the character attacked a monster when I clicked on it. Somehow, my clicks felt "cushioned". I can't describe the feeling though I wish I could. I would click in one spot and the character wouldn't quite move in that exact spot. I would click on a monster and it wouldn't register unless I pointed right in the middle of the monster. A very "mushy" and imprecise clicking experience. For a point-and-click game that's not a good quality.

One redeeming quality about Torchlight is the pet. You can choose between a cat or a dog (the difference is only aesthetic) which can fight for you and more importantly has its own inventory. Even cooler is the fact that you can send your pet to town to sell the trash you accumulate. It returns in a couple of minutes. That's all good but you will accumulate so much trash that you'll be sending your pet back all the time. In all, that's a very nice feature and I wish Diablo 3 had something similar.

The sound effects are pretty good and it seems that a lot of attention has been put into them, however it's hard to stand out from the crowd with just this feature. The music is eerily and instantly familiar and that's because the composer is the same guy who created the music for Diablo.

It's hard to come to a definite conclusion. My review was based on a 2-hour demo only and perhaps it is very unfair in this respect. It might be that if you play the full game you will come to like it. Many people do like it and many other reviewers as well. Since liking a game is a subjective matter, I am sad to report that Torchlight didn't click for me. As a rule, if a game doesn't win me over during the first 10 minutes of playing it, there are high chances that I won't enjoy it. It's either love at first sight or nothing at all.

I can't advise anyone whether they should buy Torchlight or not. What I do advise, if you are a fan of the genre and especially Diablo, is to give it a try. If you like the 2-hour demo, definitely buy it. It will probably be the best deal you've made in a long time. As for me, I'm giving it a pass.

Two New Games on the Horizon

I can't recall the last time a game, which is not World of Warcraft, captured my interest. This past week, I was smitten not by one but two games. This is very fortunate because I was getting burnt out on WoW anyway and I was planning to take a long break from it in a couple of weeks. The two games that caught my eye are Borderlands and Torchlight.

Borderlands is the first game that piqued my interest. I read something about it a few weeks ago and a couple of weeks back I started reading reviews. Man, that's one awesome game. Here's Gamespot's review. This review is for the Xbox 360 only but the game is for the PC and PS3 also. I normally don't care about console games ported to the PC (being a 100% PC gamer) but this one is really hot. Gamespot gave it a 8.5/10 which is a pretty damn good score coming from them.

Borderlands is a first person shooter with RPG elements as opposed to an RPG with FPS elements. I like shooters but ones with RPG elements are even better. People called this game a sort of Diablo with guns and a first-person perspective and from the gameplay videos I've seen, it certainly looks like it. In fact it really shines when played in cooperative mode with friends or over the internet.

Unfortunately I hit a snag with this game because I found out by chance that it requires a video card capable of DirectX 10 in order to run. Bummer. My ATI X800XL may be able to run WoW without a hitch but it only supports DX9. So I used this as an excuse to upgrade my video card. I just ordered a cheap one that supports DX10, which should be better than what I have. Eh, it was high time I upgraded my card, the X800XL being almost 4 years old.

Torchlight is one of those games that took me by surprise. I was certainly not expecting to see yet another Diablo clone before the release of Diablo 3. Well, here it is: a very cool looking Diablo clone with modern 3D graphics. Here's Gamespot's review, although you will easily find other reviews if you search for them. It only got a 8/10 but that's good enough in my book. Reading about it though makes me wanna play it right now!

Torchlight was clearly meant to be a Diablo clone and doesn't make any apologies for it. The graphics are cartoony but the gameplay seems to be fast-paced with plenty of loot drops in classic Diablo tradition but also some interesting new features such as a pet which fights for you and can carry some of your inventory and fishing (!) which allows you to fish cool stuff. The pet, for example, can carry some of your loot into town and sell it for you, returning after a few minutes. That's very neat if you ask me.

A really cool thing that I like about this game is that it only costs $20 (!!) and it's distributed in a digital format only. Some of the developers were even part of the team for the original Diablo game.

As you can probably tell, I'm very excited about these two new games. It's just as well because I need another break from WoW. I suspect I'll be playing the new ones for at least a couple of months and I will certainly write some long reviews for both. Who knows, if I like them enough I might even be diverted from WoW until Cataclysm hits. It's all good though, both games are either RPGs or have important RPG elements and if there's one type of game I love above all else, it's a good RPG.