Posted by Stropp on
November 27, 2007
I’m writing this post using my old iBook.
This year has been a particularly frustrating year regarding my PC. Early this year the motherboard and RAM on my computer died. The repair guy reckoned that I had a power surge at my house, and this cooked the electronics. A few hundred dollars later and voila, a new motherboard and RAM. I counted myself lucky that the damage wasn’t worse.
Or was it?
A few months later, the power supply stopped working. It was effectively dead. There was no power getting through at all. It was pretty easy to diagnose, so I went to the IT warehouse close to work and bought a new one. It took fifteen minutes to install and I was back up and running.
At the time my guess was that the original power surge had damaged the power supply but not fatally. Electronic components are like that. Get them too hot, expose them to a power surge, or even handle them without adequate protection like a wrist strap and you might damage them. The damage might not be enough to kill them, but it may drastically reduce the lifespan of the component.
So this morning after I get ready for work, I go to check my email and kill the spam that accumulates on this blog and the computer is frozen. I turn the power off and reboot into windows and load my email program… and it freezes again. Second try, the same thing happens, except earlier when in the initial boot sequence. It looks like the curse of the surge demon has struck again. My guess is that the CPU is on the way out.
I tried again tonight when I got home, but it looks like the system is kaput.
I think it’s time for an upgrade. The bummer is that I’ll have to set up all my games again, amongst other software. I might need to increase the download limit on my broadband account.
Sigh.
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Posted by Stropp on
November 25, 2007
I have just finished playing through Mass Effect. I picked it up on Thursday evening after work and have been running through the campaign. Granted, my first run through has been on casual difficulty, so some of the more difficult bosses have been made a bit easier, but there have been a few challenges. All in all, it took over 27 hours of played time to get through the game.
I was under the impression that it was a much longer story, and perhaps it was. I simply followed all the main quest lines and a few sub-quests, while not doing all the sub-quests. I think it was intended for the player to do a lot more free form exploring. There are heaps of stars and planets to explore, which was part of the reason I thought the main story would be longer. I didn’t even find out the romance sub-plot.
Could this be one of the flaws of the game?
Possibly. It would probably have been good to have some more guidance quest-wise. No game is perfect and Mass Effect is no exception. There were a few other things that annoyed me. Driving the vehicle wasn’t something I really enjoyed, but had to do. There were a couple of times I had trouble finding my direction too. The map system probably could have been a bit better.
All the voice acting was top notch, and there were some fairly well known actors doing the voices. Keith David, Seth Green (Scott Evil, Oz from Buffy), Marina Sirtis (Troi from Next Generation) and Lance Henrickson (Aliens, Millenium.) Lance Henrickson has a very distinctive voice which I recognized straight away, he’s one of my favorite actors. It took me a while to figure out the voice that sounded so familiar was Marina Sirtis, I didn’t check the credits at all. At one point I thought it might have been Claudia Black.
I think the fact that I was disappointed when the game finished, gives a pretty good idea of how much I enjoyed it. I got the same feeling of wanting more that I get when I finish a book that has really sucked me into its world.
It’ll probably be a few more years before that happens. As I understand it, Mass Effect is the first part in a trilogy of games that will unfold the fate of the galaxy in each game. Bioware has been Massively Effective with this first game. It’s a highly polished example of the work that they do. I can’t wait until the next game.
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Posted by Stropp on
November 19, 2007
The other day as I was in the kitchen area at work making a coffee, I noticed a postcard pinned up on the notice board. It was instantly recognizable as Piccadilly Circus in London. There was only one thing strange about it. No hordes of Zombies milling around, waiting to chow down on some fresh brains.
Piccadilly Circus is one of the locations that I had visited in the game, Hellgate: London. That Piccadilly Circus was overrun by the minions of hell, who had broken through the Hellgate years earlier. The date now is 2038 and those denizens of darkness have begun the process of terraforming, or should that be hellaforming, the Earth into a demons paradise. The only thing standing in the way of achieving this goal is the human groups fighting for survival in the London Underground.
You see, for centuries the Knights Templar knew of the threat that the Demons posed to Humanity. Even as the average person forgot, the Templars remembered and prepared. Part of this preparation involved the building of the Underground. Each of the stations was warded to make it safe from demonic incursions. These stations are now where the last vestiges of humanity prepare, trade, and receive their instructions in the ongoing fight.
As a member of one of the three factions, sword wielding Templar, magical Cabalist, or tech-savvy Hunter you will engage in combat with the forces of darkness. The motto Remember the dead, Fight for the Living will be on your lips.
Hellgate: London is developed by Flagship Studios and published by Electronic Arts. Flagship Studios was founded by a number of ex-Blizzard employees, notably including Bill Roper, who had been involved in the development of Blizzards Diablo 1 and 2. That pedigree shows up quite strongly in Hellgate: London as it closely emulates much of the gameplay of Diablo 2.
The big difference between Diablo 2 and Hellgate: London is that Hellgate: London is a fully 3D game. It can be played, like most MMOGs, using a first person view or a over the shoulder third person view. The other difference is that Hellgate: London is a Science Fiction themed game as opposed to Diablos medieval fantasy style. It’s set in the future, there are guns and grenade along with the magic, and the Hell of Hellgate: London isn’t the Hell of Christianity.
Other than those differences, the Diablo fan will see lots of similarities. Each time you venture out of a station into a zone, except for the fixed locales like Piccadilly Circus, the map will be different. Inventory management is handled in much the same way, and the items you collect will have different stats and some pieces will make up sets with better bonuses.
The game essentially comes in two versions. There is the single player version of the client, and the multiplayer version. The multiplayer client will allow you to connect online with other players. You can team up with other players and then go into the instanced areas and fight demons, or complete quests. This operates in much the same way as Guild Wars. You will only encounter other players in the stations, and not when in the fight.
You also have two multiplayer subscriber options. The first is the free sub. You get to play with other players. The second option is to pay $10 a month. This gives the ability to create a guild, increased storage space (double) and a few other perks like being involved in subscriber events.
The Good
Hellgate: London is a great looking game. The graphics are very well done, and look great on my widescreen monitor. The visual effects are really well done. Explosions and spell effects look good.
The character models look great too, and there are a lot of them, or seem to be at least. While I haven’t done any verification, it feels like there is a much bigger range of monsters than there were in Diablo 2. And some are particularly nasty. I speak of the Grotesque. The Grotesque looks like a giant frozen chicken with chock full of zombie stuffing. Part of its attack is by flapping it’s giant flabby wings. When you kill it, it explodes and belches out a bunch of zombies and giant maggots. Absolutely brilliant.
The Grotesque is only part of the humour present in Hellgate: London. Early on you will do a questline with Techsmith 314. The dialog here is priceless, and at one point you’ll have to catch the poor terrified chap so that he can dunk his head into the fiery cauldron of eternal happiness… or something like that.
As I previously mentioned, Hellgate: London plays much like Diablo 2. I count this as one of the good things about the game. I found the gameplay to be quite addictive. There were a few nights when I finished up only to realise the time. When are game developers going to put clocks on their games ?!?
The Bad
All is not fire and brimstone in Hellgate: London.
The worst problems I encountered were in the Multiplayer game. Lockups, crashes, and stuck in levels. Oh my!
There seemed to one station, Charing Cross, where every second or third time I attempted to enter, either by going through the portal, or by recalling back, my computer would hang. Completely. Unable to ctrl-alt-delete. The only option was a hard reset. The story in the forums was that this is being caused by a memory leak. I say is, because at the time of writing this, I understand that the problem has not been fixed.
There have also been a few times when I have got to the end of a level and have attempted to go through a portal into a new level and find myself unable to do so. Attempting to recall will also fail. The only way out is to quit the game and start again. I don’t know if this is a server failure, or a fault with the client. But it’s damn frustrating to almost finish a mission and have to start again after I restart the game.
There are also reports of some broken quests, skills not working, and other admittedly more minor annoyances. There’s one quest I won’t take again simply because I can’t get it to work. The last time I tried, I ended up just killing the boss and abandoning the quest.
The Ugly
Inventory management. Arrrggh. There I am killing monsters and happily picking up their loot until I can’t pick up any more. Then when I check the inventory, I find plenty of room, it’s just organized badly. So… I spent the next five minutes reordering my bags to fit the loot. This is one of the things I hated about Diablo too.
The User Interface doesn’t help much here. All the screens for inventory management, skills, and the like open full screen and you don’t get to see what around. So there I am rearranging my inventory and all of a sudden I start getting attacked. Doh! It would be nice to be able to have a window open and still be able to move or fight. Especially since the game doesn’t pause.
Lack of help. There is so much stuff in this game, but no in-game help. Skills are a case in point. Each class has a large number of skills and a very limited number of skill points to put in them. Aside from many of them being useless (or so I’ve heard) there is minimal description when you hover over them. The only way I’ve been able to find out about some of them is by visiting the forums. Not good.
Skills. Personally, I think each character has too many, and not enough points to put in them. There’s also no way to respec and the devs have said that they are not going to implement one. Now while leveling in Hellgate: London is much faster than other MMOGs, this means that if you stuff up your skills, the only option is to reroll. I tend to think that, especially these days, it’s a bit unfriendly.
Conclusion
Hellgate: London is a fun game, if you are playing the single player version. Unfortunately, at this time the multiplayer game is not ready for release. In fact I became so frustrated with it, I have stopped playing it altogether and have gone on to another game. It’s Vanguard deja vu.
When Flagship fix the issues, as Arnie says, I’ll be back. If bugs bother you and you want Hellgate: London for the multiplayer, my advice is to wait. If you can handle the problems, as many other players do, then by all means get into it.
If you just want to play the single player version, and you enjoyed Diablo. I’d say go for it. It is a fun and addictive game and I reckon you’ll get many hours of enjoyment. That’s not to say it’s perfect, but nothing is.
For this review, I’m going to split the score.
Hellgate: London Singleplayer gets 85/100.
Hellgate: London Multiplayer gets 65/100.
Popularity: 5%
Posted by Stropp on
November 16, 2007
Well, not really.
I’ve actually been fairly busy at work and at home over the last few weeks. I’ve been quite the greenie too by getting my garden up to spec and laying down the mulch. The big purchase has been the installation of a gray water system and the associated infrastructure. This will hopefully help to keep the garden alive since we’re not allowed to water except one evening a week. Oh, and my next door neighbour told me the other day that his house was riddled with termites! So I also needed to organise an inspection… thankfully my house is white ant free.
My time hasn’t just been occupied with household shenanigans. As I mentioned previously, I ordered Hellgate: London and Mass Effect. Hellgate: London arrived ten days or so ago and I’ve given it a good bash. I’ll be writing up a review sometime this weekend. The advance review… Single player game - Fantastic. The multiplayer MMO style game - I was very disappointed. You’ll have read the review when it comes up for the details.
I’m also now playing Richard Garriott’s Tabula Rasa. Unfortunately I never had time to do a real preview before the release as I had planned. I’ll be putting up a review for Tabula Rasa in the next couple of weeks. I’d like to play it a bit more before I write one up. Having said that, Tabula Rasa was heavily improved in the final weeks before release and a lot of content was added. It’s a quality game.
If you decide to play and want to say hello, I’ve joined up on the European server. Just look for McStropp. NCSoft did the right thing and didn’t segregate their servers. This allows anyone to join any TR server in the world. I reckon it’s great not being segregated.
Mass Effect is the next game that will arrive. I preordered at the same time as Hellgate: London, and have been looking forward to it for some time. I really like the premise of the story. Humanity takes the leap into space, getting into trouble along the way, at about the same time a race of machines is due to return to the galaxy to cull sentient life. I’ve read a number of SciFi novels that have this as their premise. The Revelation Space series by Alastair Reynolds and Engines of God by Jack McDevitt are two examples that come to mind. If you like SciFi I highly recommend them.
In any case, life isn’t likely to calm down before Christmas. My posting schedule is likely to be a bit less than regular, but I won’t disappear completely.
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