Blargh.I'm lacking motivation to play anything new and talk about it, and nothing is really happening in life that's worth talking about... I mean I might say something about how much I still love my little pony at some point since that's really the only thing I'm keeping interest in still, but meh.
So instead, have a link to what I think is the best Source Film Maker video ever. GentleBot Hell [SFM]
Blargh.I'm lacking motivation to play anything new and talk about it, and nothing is really happening in life that's worth talking about... I mean I might say something about how much I still love my little pony at some point since that's really the only thing I'm keeping interest in still, but meh.
So instead, have a link to what I think is the best Source Film Maker video ever. GentleBot Hell [SFM]
So again, I'll point out my primary reason for playing the game these days is the story. I know, I know, story in an MMO, looooooooooooool, etc. Nah, the only reason I ever got into WoW was because I wanted to see what happened after Warcraft 3. Each expansion has always brought something new and interesting story related to me, so I ate that shit up and loved damn near every minute of it.
Conveniently, the raid times I'm usually in for the end game stuff are usually slow progressed, which is absolutely fine by me. I kinda look at all the top rated PvE guilds on my server and think they're fucking idiots for clearing everything on normal and heroic mode within a couple weeks after the content is released... just means they'll be farming the exact same shit over and over and over again for the next few months until the next bunch of content is released. Whether they do it on other characters or not, it still sounds boring as hell. My raid team paces ourselves, we're not in a massive rush to finish it (or most of us aren't anyway), we have loads of fun getting there, it's just the best way to get to the end, and by the time we get there and kill it a few times, the next bit of content is so damn close to release that we can just jump right in, proud that we did everything before it, at our own pace.
So that out of the way, whats great about the expansion? Everything.... everything but dailies.... I still do not give a shit what the haters think, the Pandas are not knock offs of Kung Fu Panda, Blizzard has that idea way before Dreamworks did, and now that they finally brought it back into WoW, Chen Stormstout, the Pandaren that introduced the concept, has made an appearance in the opening cinematic and various quests in the game. He's a very likable character, I always enjoyed doing stuff with, for and around him... then again, I generally enjoy doing quests related to the characters we actually know of...
The general story in bringing the Pandarens as a playable race was that when we decided to go fuck up Deathwing, the Alliance Gunship that was used to chase him down had crash landed onto a giant island while everyone abandoned it to go jump on Deathwings back, which took us to the Maelstrom for the big endgame fight. That Island just happened to be the home of a certain faction of Pandaren... conveniently, the ones who were ones training warriors, monks, etc, etc, etc. They noticed that their island had been behaving strangely as of late, so they communicate with it. How do they do this? Well I lied, because it's not an island, they're actually riding a giant fucking Turtle with forests and buildings and stuff on it's back that they live on. The turtle itself was complaining of a massive pain in his side, so they go investigate. There they find the surviving Horde and Alliance members from the gunship wreckage who are fighting the wildlife and the turtles aggressive healing body. The Pandaren want to heal the turtles wound without killing the invaders, but thats being a problem when they're both just attacking each other, intentionally or not. So now the Pandarens come up with a plan, working with both the Alliance and Horde members, who both add onto the plan and eventually make a massive decision that either sits well with half of these pandaren, or doesn't. Blah blah blah, big turtle healed, Alliance and Horde safe, the Pandaren players pick if the want to join the Alliance or Horde.
Thats just the first 10 levels for the new playable race, which is amazing. What's actually going on is the fog or mists at the bottomish area of the world suddenly disappeared and revealed a whole new continent. Both the Alliance and Horde leaders want this new land for their own, so they send armies and stuff there to try and claim it, eventually running into each other again and bringing their war to the new land. The natives, being mostly Pandaren, are not pleased with this because this war has awakened an evil that a previous emperor of theirs had locked away (ain't that the way). Ignoring this, both Alliance and Horde continue the war, but the players go explore more, make friends with new neutral factions who don't give a fuck and like everyone, but then they discover just how devastating this war will be because the beings that may as well be gods are worried about something, and then a large being of physical, negative emotion suddenly bursts through the earth and corrupts parts of the land...
Turns out their emperor had taken all 6 of his primary negative emotions out of himself and banished them. These emotions had manifested into beings called the Sha, and the Sha's of Fear, Anger, Hatred, Despair, Doubt and Violence suddenly grew in power as the Horde and Alliance brought their war on this land that has more or less known peace ever since the Emperor had done this. So now the entire continent is having little minions of negative emotion sprout up and corrupt the land, everybody is suddenly having wild mood swings and shit is just getting absolutely fucked up.
The general and prince of these Horde and Alliance armies that came to the continent discovered this and are now worried what would happen when their leaders decide to finally come to the land, with good reason because both have an outstanding hatred towards the other faction, or leader at least and almost stop at nothing to try and kill the other, regardless of who or what is in their path.
Assassin's Creed 3Okay, so lemme elaborate on what that picture meant when I said I just finished Assassin's Creed 3.
Easily one of the games I was waiting excitedly to play this year. Still avoided as many spoilers as I could. Knew as much as 1) New Assassin, and 2) American Revolution.
Now I'll start by saying... No. Im not one of those non-American people that thought the game would be shit just because they decided to appeal to Americans by putting the game in a piece of American history simply because 'FUCK YEAH, AMERICA!'. No, I didn't even give the slightest fuck. I kind of questioned it to myself just because in the little I know about with the American Revolution history, I didn't find it interesting at all, hence my lack of knowledge of it... if I cared, I'd look into it a little more. This is a different case for me, Assassin's Creed 2 and Brotherhood I already had some knowledge on the Borgias and the shit they're doing across Italy, so getting thrown into that was exciting for me. I bought Revelations just cause... fuck it, apart from the history being entertaining, the gameplay of these games was also great, even if Revelations gave me nothing on history... still have no idea what that was about.
Also bought the first game, finished it once, was okay. Just a massive mistake to play sequels before the original games, painful to go from Brotherhood and Revelations to the 1st game... such primitive controls and lack of stuff, etc, etc, etc. I toughed it out, finished it, was cool.
My major hates for these games are the things with Desmond and the Animus and stuff. Thats essentially the baseline in which the series is created, but good god does that bore me to tears. When I first played AC2 for the first time and saw him and Lucy doing their things and escaping, I was thinking "The fuck is this?". Whatever, I was able to ignore it. Mid way through when you get control of him again and play him the same way as Ezio (just to turn on some switches), and then in Brotherhood to run around pointlessly for a while, and Revelations with his Backstory indepth, and seeing why people were after him in the 1st game, I drew a conclusion that they're just building up to an eventual Assassin's Creed game in the modern age with Desmond as the protagonist... sounds logical right?
NOPE! They kill him.
Ah hell, im sure that's not even a spoiler.
Look, I still kind of ignored what I could with him and the rest, but for obvious bits needed for the story I tired paying attention, I got the general idea of what they're talking about... it... it just came right the fuck out of nowhere... far worse than Mass Effect 3's original ending. Go ahead, debate me on that, see if I care. Mass Effect at least had a shit load more going for it than that. I sat there thinking... why the hell did they even bother with Desmond at all. The story of these Assassin's in these points in history was facinating and fun enough, they didn't need to throw in this whole 'Apple of Eden' bullshit.
Whatever, story purposes aside, there was a lot wrong with the game in general. I started the thing up, straight away I noticed something VERY off... Desmond and such looked entirely different. Far worse than they did in the other games. AC1 had some stiff animations, but whatever, standard 2007 look, can still see them. AC2 they looked just like they did in AC1, but they moved so much smoother, their facial expressions looked great, it was just a lot of good animation to upgrade these original models, something you definitely want to see with sequels. Brotherhood and Revelations I personally considered to be experimental expansions. Brotherhood everyone looked exactly the same as AC2, the story around Ezio just progressed and they threw in some Multiplayer. Revelations looked as if they were trying out some different technologies, still AC2 gameplay, but Ezio, Desmond, everybody looked a little different. Nothing bad though, you can still tell it's them, they just also added some new and different gameplay mechanics... whether they worked or not is debatable. AC3 on the otherhand... good fucking god, they seriously look like apes wearing clothes. They look absolutely nothing like they used to, the updated graphics and engine does not do the animations justice, they just move around stupidly as well. Updates or not, why couldn't they just keep the same models from AC2, or even Revelations, and just throw a shiny coat of paint over them, not completely redo them... they did it in AC2 from AC1, so what the fuck happened?!
There's some performance issues as well, I got the game for PC as I did the other 4, though apparently there's issues on the consoles as well, which does not bode well for it. Basically just walking through a city is kinda jerky. My computer is pretty damn amazing, but even the best computers out there are having these issues, so it's clearly not the platforms they're on, it's the game itself. It's jerky, it's slow, it's for some reason running better when he's out in a highly detailed and eventful wilderness than in a boring, ugly city. Go figure.
Had a few games of Halo 4 Multiplayer, it's enjoyable at least. The Loadouts work and balance well, people have their own preferences... I prefer the Carbine, so having that on hand all the time is lovely. The heavy weapons remain scattered around the map, plus the chance to get 1 out of 3 items every so often, whether it be grenades, power ups or a heavy weapon, is pretty good. Despite all this, it's Halo, just with more balance and convenience. Already proving to be more enjoyable than Reach was, though give it a few more weeks and the crap ranking system will start to come into effect. Campaign im still not getting really into until me and my mate finish it Co-Op.
Black Ops 2 I played a few games when my father went off... im sure he wont care that I ranked him a few times. The mentioned updates due to slightly futuristic setting DO play a good part in making the gameplay a little different and interesting, but they don't come into effect as often as I'd like to see. Then again, maybe more people need more time to actually unlock them before shit gets real, so I'll give it a chance and wait a little longer before I get real into it. Them aside, the gameplay is still really looking CoD4ish, so I still stand by my opinions.
That aside, my thoughts over Halo 4 are upped slightly, not enough to make me the obsessive fan I used to be, but I'll probably play a fair bit for the next month or so. Black Ops 2 will be... whenever I look at my dads unattended computer and feel bored. They still don't live up to the hype being dished out in the past year, but it's not nearly as bad as say.... Diablo 3... don't know if that means anything to anyone, I don't care. That's my opinion. Team Fortress 2 remains at the top of my favorite FPS games.
Black Ops and Halo!Okay, so I was going to do a long arse talk about Mists of Pandaria now that it's been 2 monthsish after release, plenty of time to judge it so far, but 2 of the bigger named FPS franchises released new games this year, so I think it's time for my annual CoD talk, and I'll include Halo in it because.... you'll see why.
Okay, so I did pick up Halo 4 first day, but me and a mate decided... fuck it. We'll do our first play through in the campaign Co-Op and split screen. Actually get a real sense of proper good enjoyment.
The loophole here is that I could do Multiplayer, but fuck that shit and I'll explain in a second.
So we start the campaign, STRAIGHT AWAY... we noticed something.... something huge and absolutely, ridiculously, retarded...
Halo 4 is using Call of Duty controls. I SHIT YOU NOT!
Yes I exaggerate that slightly, but I seriously mean slightly. There's obvious things in Halo that cannot be done in Call of Duty. Things that can be done in Call of Duty can now be done in Halo, and as a result, really obvious controls have been remapped... really badly. Crouch was left Thumbstick in, right? Fuck that shit, Crouch is B now because we have Sprint, Left Thumbstick and Crouch can get the same as CoD controls :D! That sounds minor, but it seriously isn't... I mean there's nothing minor about that. Not the way most people play.
Anyway, bunch of others are taken out from Reach, Melee is right bumper, armor ability is left bumper, grenades are left trigger, switch grenades is........left/right on the D-pad.... cause B is crouch......... yeah, Reach was hard to get used to, im gonna say Halo 4 is gonna be harder if you don't play CoD.
ANYWAY... we played through roughly 4 levels, continuing another time. First impressions... meh. It's good, it's very detailed and shiny, some weapons sound awesome, some sound stupid, some old ones sound better, some old ones sound worse, Master Chief wont shut the fuck up, Grunts look stupid... I have my Covenant Carbine back though, that was my all-time favorite weapon ever in Halo 2 and 3. So far with our campaign run, nothing really bothering, we're having fun. I could probably find things to bitch about when I solo it.
The Multiplayer on the other hand, 2 specific things stick out for me, 1 and a half of them making me stay the fuck away from it. The first is that it's using the same, absolutely, fucking annoying ranking system as Halo: Reach. I'll explain what I mean, Halo: Reach ranking had nothing to do with skill. Anybody that played for ages could get the highest rank effortlessly if they just played a lot. I went on for the first time in ages the other day, very high ranked people in my games... there's plenty there that just slaughter me, sure, I haven't played in ages, but there's also some that I manage to dominate hilariously... There's nothing defining skill and as a result, you get thrown into games like that. Halo 2 and 3 had a ranking system of going up for winning, down for losing. That was skill, the ranked playlists put you in a game with people of your skill level, that's what you want... why the fuck did they take that away in Reach, and why the fuck did they bring it back for Halo 4?!?!
The other thing is the Loadout system, now seriously... thats just straight out of CoD. Well not necessarily CoD, but that's the big competitor that these games go against, so that's what I'm going with. You pick a primary, secondary, skin, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah... that's fucked. On 1 hand, I can have some of the good Covenant Weapons like the Carbine that was seriously lacking in maps in the previous games. Seriously, human weapons everywhere, barely any covenant, which I always thought stupid. Coupled with the fact that Halo 3 onwards had you start with Assault Rifles, or the very very often gametype with Battle Rifles or DMR's... both I hated. This just gives nobody a reason to pick up weapons at all unless they're power weapons, which from any players loudmouthed player's perspective, makes them a giant pussy. Halo 1 had Pistols/Plasma Pistols depending on the map, Halo 2 had SMG's... I miss that.
Now there's apparently no weapons laying around the maps at all... everyone relies on Loadouts? Whyyyyyyyy, that was a good thing that separated Halo from all these dumb war shooters, it's one of the few games that still had weapons laying around the map. That was so much better than fucking loadouts... argue that all you want, but that made people move around more. Now the only reason to move is to get a power weapon, which is automatically going to become a trap since everybody can see where they are due to nav points, and we can just sit and wait around it, or have all scoped weapons on it waiting for the sorry dickhead trying to grab it.
Siiigh.... of course this is just observing opinion, I suppose I should actually play it through before I have a bitch. I might do that tonight.
World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria - Impressions (before release)No, I didn't go in the Beta, no im not making fun of it, no I don't care that it has Kung Fu Panda's in it, Warcraft had Kung Fu Pandas before Dreamworks did, I wouldn't even be surprised if thats where Dreamworks got the idea from.
They started in Warcraft 3 Not exactly main characters, more of just a random bonus character you could find in certain levels, bonus quest of the Orc campaign in the expansion, or purchasable... mercenary hero or something I guess in certain maps in normal arse normal games. The unit was a Brewmaster, just a guy obsessed with his Alcohol and whacking dudes with his stick. I can't remember entirely, but I think their level 6 ability was to split into 3 elemental samurai looking warriors (so not exactly Kung Fu, but of course people that don't even know half of these concepts wouldn't be able to tell the difference).
There was also Easter Eggs, I remember one level where you get around as far to the west of a map as you can in a specific area with waterfalls and stuff, the screen would quickly flash this image: and a notification with it "Pandaren Relaxation Area"
If I recall correctly, I think they originated purely as just random little easter eggs, one of the Blizzard designers had his own little mark he threw around that just happened to be Panda related. This is evident on Illidan or Demon Hunter heroes in the game. A panda face is on the hilt of their glaives. Even when Illidan becomes all demonic looking, the panda face is still there, it just becomes more demonic looking also.
Pissed me off when his World of Warcraft model didn't have the panda face on it, but what can ya do :D
So analysis of the panda's aside, I will just flat out admit that this expansion surprised me... not in the good way. I admit, I did expect the pandaren to turn up eventually, in fact I thought when the Burning Crusade came out that they were going to be the new playable Alliance race, because Blizzard were keeping that a secret for quite some time. April Fools pranks making them Wisps and stuff, but then they finally revealed that they were the Draenei. Whatever, it was fine, but I still expected pandas at some point. At most, I expected a major content patch to feature them... a filler patch I guess, usually what they do with Troll dungeon and raids. I figured they couldn't do trolls forever (though of course they can) so they'd just bring something else in to make an appaearence... Pandas, why not.
A full blown expansion though... I still tilt my head at that. I hear very good things from people that played the Beta, and I admit, they do intrigue me. Of course im entering year.... 8? 7 or 8 of my time playing the game and to be perfectly honest, I really only play for the story these days anymore. The game has a fucking great story... multiple stories actually. I know there's enough major stories for at least 3 more expansions after Cataclysm, with some major enemies to use, and it allows them to cap off the game at level 100. Pandas being announced for the next expansion really confused me, though I then thought about it a little more and my thought of the next logical step for expansions to be with Queen Azshara seemed slightly silly... moving on from Deathwing the Destroyer to Azshara is a little... nonthreatening.
Of course looking into the games lore, she is undoubtedly a threat, but it just seems rather underwhelming to go with a Dragon that damn near destroyed the world effortlessly to a snake bitch with a grudge... yeah. The next 2 would be the Emerald Dream and the Titans, I wont get into that, but I can actually see Azshara turning into a big threat when we get around to the Emerald Dream stuff so... whatever, we'll see what they do.
I also realise while im typing this that anybody that doesn't play the game, or not look into the story while playing would have absolutely no idea what im talking about... I say meh to you, why are you reading this if you weren't into the Warcraft story.
So yeah, I have a habit of not looking things up on games im excited for to reduce any and all spoilers I get to a minimum. I like to be surprised as much as possible when I play new games/expansions. Sooo.... my only impressions on the game are story related stuff because I have absolutely no idea whats happening with the gameplay and/or things to do in the game.
The only other comment I have is on the intro cinematic. I'll straight up say it, I liked it. Very entertaining, and absolutely gorgeous to look at. It does exactly what it was meant to do and really show off the Pandaren. It does it exceptionally well.
What bothers me about the intro though is it doesn't do the other elements of the expansion justice. Cataclysm was trying to put more emphasis on the Horde and Alliance war because Garrosh Hellscream is in charge of the Horde, and he's a gigantic prick. It did okay, there was a lot of shocking things in Cataclysm to do with Alliance towns being taken over or destroyed, same as the Horde, though not as much. Mists of Pandaria is supposed to take that Horde and Alliance war further... I don't see that.
The Human and the Orc in the intro having a biff is a little boring. I get that they hate each other and stuff, but they started out with ships firing at each other, with these 2 being shipwrecked while still trying to kill each other... it makes them seem and look much more like Pirates than members of the Horde and Alliance. They could've tied these 2 into the reveal of the panda and stuff as they did far better if they also showed parts of the war elsewhere. Night Elves and Orcs in Ashenvale, Humans and Undead in Plaguelands... SOMETHING more...
Darksiders 2So I just finished it then and.... *sigh*... im beginning to think developers all gathered at some point and said "2012 is when we're just gonna have the endings fuck with peoples minds, lol!"
Darksiders 2 was incredibly enjoyable and im certainly gonna play through a few more times. Much more than I can say for Darksiders 1, which has next to no re playability beyond wanting to see the story again. However, as I just said, the ending... im just kinda shaking my head at it.
I don't particularly want to spoil it, though logical thinking would say the main thing about it would have everyone figure that anyway. I don't want to say it just jumps right the fuck out of nowhere, cause it... wasn't BAD or anything, I actually would think it to be a good ending... it just kinda comes and goes before you can even take in what you just did.
Not that there really is spoilers here, but I'll do the bars anyway.
This whole last bit. The evil is named, it's motive made clear, the consequences of whatever Death has done all come down to this... ............ ....Win.
No seriously, that's pretty much what happened. There was an epic boss fight as you could imagine, but it was sooooooo easy sooooooo fast and only had the 1 phase... There was 4 boss fights earlier in the game that were so much harder, longer and far more epic. I'll just leave it at that, but im pretty sure a little non-detailed description like that just says it all.
Now if you played the first one, it clearly ends with War breaking the 7th seal and the other 3 Horseman coming down from the sky. Death included. Obviously there is a mention of this at the end of Deaths story, because no matter what happens, he'll end up there. Darksiders 2 took place during the time where War was imprisoned for apparently starting the apocalypse.
Something like this, to me, implies Darksiders 3 and 4. There's clearly plenty of shit happening, and while it's not exactly made clear what Fury and Strife are doing, it is clear that they are indeed doing something. This is partially made evident by Strife leaving his gun behind. The people that found it said they have no idea where it came from, but clearly Strife is out doin stuff. Not a bad thing. If they make another 2 games, all ending with War breaking the 7th seal, then hopefully they top it off with a Darksiders 5, where all 4 are playable, possibly in 4player co-op.
The rest of the game was pretty damn awesome. I played Darksiders 1 right before 2 came out, remind myself whats happened, refresh myself on everything, blah blah blah... at first this worked against me, Death plays so differently to War. It's easy to get used to in a hurry... kinda, I found myself continuously trying to double jump or slow fall over gaps to no avail. But what he lacks in that he makes up for in the ability to climb and run up walls, assuming there's wooden planks and stuff there to either throw himself up a little more, further or catch.
Combat was lovely. Standard hack and slash with some great RPG elements to it. The story was slow to start, but very engaging once you realise whats happening. Im not sure if Death had as many combinations of moves as War did, but he had a good amount for every situation so it's not like you'll really find yourself lacking. One of the cool things was possessed weapons... they eat other items to get stronger. It's basically just weapons that are aready good, but at the cost of other items, customizable in your own way... they level up and increase in basic stats as they go, but certain items give you a choice for 1 of 4 stats to add onto or upgrade on the weapon. Saves you wondering whether these new epic scythes are better than these ones or whatever... fuck em, let your current ones eat them to make them better than both XD
Boss fights were amazing. Giant colossus looking things, Arch Demons, Arch Angels... even what I can only describe as Cthulhu! Cthulhu of all things! It's not actually him, though he certainly looks like him.
Deaths character is a little weird. He threatens everyone continuously (though he's a horseman of the apocalypse, so he should) yet continuously does what everyone wants... even if he doesn't think it worth the effort... Despite the ability to destroy anything and everything in his path, Death is a bit of a pushover. War at least had the excuse of having a Watcher keeping him on a leash, telling him what to do, but Death... Death is just a shockingly nice guy that likes to kill things... Love his voice though, good god what I would do for a voice like that.
Whatever, despite the very... strange ending, it was a very good game, and I look forward to the next 2... unless THQ shuts down as a lot of it seems to be doing. I say get it.
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