First Impressions of Guild Wars 2

Article by Daniel Nenadovic

So, I was supposed to write a review of The Walking Dead Episode 3 yesterday, but to my dismay the game's automatic update to add the new content in also mucked up all of my saves to the point that, if I wanted to play Episode 3 with my storyline, I was going to have to replay through the entire series, which would have added about 6 hours to the job. I'm going to hold off on the review until either Telltale fixes the problem or I have a boatload of time to kill on replaying the first two episodes.

Instead, as you may have guessed by the title, I'm going to give you my initial impressions of Guild Wars 2. The game was insanely hyped before its release as something new and revolutionary to the MMO genre, but then pretty much every upcoming MMO is advertised just so. Does Guild Wars 2 live up to that level of hype? Definitely not. If you jumped into this game expecting something entirely new and different, then you would be terribly disappointed.

It's still a fantastic game in its own right, but it is very much a game that lives and breathes within the systems of gameplay established by its predecessors. What it does incredibly well with that framework is cut all of the chaff away from it and leave the player with a solid game to have fun with. Guild Wars 2 strips the MMO down to two of its fundamental ingredients: socialization and the grind. Yes, that's right, I'm bringing up that forbidden G of MMOs, The Grind. It is incredibly and transparently present in this game to the point that it almost feels like it IS the game.

You create a character. There are some great customization options and each of the races feels very distinct. You even establish some background bullet points for your character that will alter your main story a bit, which helps make the character yours.

But then you dive in. An artsy cinematic, maybe some talky bits where characters talk at each other, and you're in the game. Rather than filling a ledger up with quests for your character, you generally only have one quest in Guild Wars 2, and that's your main story quest that drives an okay narrative throughout your game. That's not nearly enough content to fill an MMO, though. So the NPC you talk to early on will mark your map with a few interesting locations. 

These "hearts," so-called because they show up as a heart symbol on your map, are tasks. To participate in a task, you go to its area and do stuff. Grindy stuff, really. Kill some monsters. Feed some cows. Put a few fires out. Kill a big monster. The catch is that, like Public Quests in Warhammer Online, everybody is participating together. You don't have to officially form a group, and you don't have to get the first hit on a monster to get experience from it. Everybody works together and gets immediately rewarded for completing the event, which helps bring friendly socialization back into the MMO genre. Where normally you would compete for kills, here you work together.

There's certainly still competition, but a better kind. In the screen above I'm attacking a giant worm. But so are at least three other people. The servers are crowded right now, and everybody wants in on the action, so trying to get any personal contribution in on a public task can be a humorous experience of trying to rush to the next target alongside everybody else.

Despite that current frenzy, this is a fantastic idea for MMOs and, while it's not a new idea, Guild Wars 2 implements it masterfully and wonderfully. The majority of your time in the game will probably be spent completing tasks, but that's awesome because everybody works together on them instead of competing. It's Massively Multiplayer incarnate. Tasks are the meat of this game and they are great. They give you MMO gameplay but cut out the middle man and the travel between quest-givers so that you can just enjoy playing the game and be rewarded for that.

But they are still a grind. A grind that I rather enjoy. If, however, you have a big problem with grinding in a video game, Guild Wars 2 is not going to be your thing. There's no way around it.

That grind is, at least, broken up by an interesting weapons system. In most MMOs, you want to find a new weapon to increase your damage and look cooler. In Guild Wars 2, equipping a new type of weapon or off-hand item changes your most spammable skills to a completely different set of skills tailored to that new kind of item. For each weapon type that your class can use, when you first equip said weapon you'll only have one skill for it unlocked, but use it a bit in combat and you'll quickly unlock the remaining abilities. This gives you an early sense of progression that wears off very early because those abilities unlock very quickly, but it also serves as a great introduction to the style of combat that your new gear is going to promote. And that weapons system allows you to spice up your game as you see fit. Get bored of using a magic rod? Switch it out and put a staff in its place. Try a sword and a pistol. Each one of these will have its own set of skills and thus its own style of combat. You will, of course, still have some core class skills that are unchanged by weapon swaps.

And travel times are vastly reduced as compared to most games. Similar to Guild Wars 1 in design, with Guild Wars 2 you simply select a waypoint on the map that you would like to travel to, pay a few measly coppers, and appear there instantly. No tedious flight paths or running to old locations. Click, appear. Wonderful and it gets you to actually playing the game as quickly as possible.

So far, Guild Wars 2 is visually beautiful. While not necessarily cutting-edge in technology, its art style is supreme. The organic standard forest fairy visuals of the Sylvari are a wonder to behold and even something as simple as the water sprinklers on human farms look wonderful in Guild Wars 2's rendering. Those visuals do chug along on my system. Be warned that Guild Wars 2 is a very CPU-dependent game.

Audio has been good so far. Voice-acting in the various cutscenes is not stellar and can often come off bored or stiff, but it works well enough. The music is good, with much of Jeremy Soule's original work returning from the first game.

In what little I have played of it, the grind has stayed fun because of the changes that Guild Wars 2 has made to the genre, but then I'm only level 10 out of 80. I hope that it stays fresh throughout, but only time will tell. There is yet more, too. I have not even touched on vistas, which are a great addition. Or the crafting system. Or the overflow system that so rightfully annoys players. Or any number of various details. More next week, then.

Review: ParaNorman

Review by Daniel Nenadovic

I woke up this morning with plans to write out my thoughts on Star Wars: The Old Republic, what with its impending transition to a free-to-play business model and my many musings on its strengths and weaknesses. I can't write that article today, because I saw Paranorman a few hours ago and I need to tell you right now that you need to go out and see ParaNorman. For today, if you'd like some thoughts on SW:TOR and haven't read Randy's thoughts on the Inquisitor class story yet, you should do that here.

So, why do I need to tell you that you need to go see ParaNorman? I can't tell you that. See, while ParaNorman is a good movie throughout, what compels me to drive others toward this film are its final act and its final message. These are phenomenal, and I can't recommend them enough, but nor can I spoil them for you because that would weaken their effect.

Is the rest of ParaNorman worth seeing, though? It starts off feeling like typical modern animation fare, with a mix of adult and childish sensibilities and a standard cast of stereotypical characters. You have the downtrodden and misunderstood loner, the annoying sibling, the parent who refuses to understand or accept, and the school bully. That's nothing special, right? You've read that story dozens of times. Heard it told since you were a child. Perhaps you've even seen it on the big screen one too many times.

Indeed, ParaNorman would not have gripped me from the start but for its beautiful visual style. It is a stunning and beautiful blend of stop-motion animation and CGI. I must confess that I am damned tired of CGI animated films. I've never quite bought into their shiny plastic aesthetics. Trying to watch The Phantom Menace or Attack of the Clones makes me squeamish for all of the shiny environments, and even recent CGI still leaves me disappointed. For instance, one reason that I've yet to see Brave is that it is another animated film that looks like glossy plastic to me. I know that CGI can do great things, but I'm just weary of it. ParaNorman, in trying to stay practical as much as possible, lets CGI heavily complement practical stop-motion, and the visuals come out absolutely amazing for it. They are masterful, and if you're a fan of stop-motion animation then they are reason enough to go see ParaNorman in theatres as soon as you can.

If you're not a fan of stop-motion, then maybe you can rely on ParaNorman's quirky vibes to stay interested in the movie. From oddball music to gross corpse humor, the whole film strays a short ways off the beaten path into territory that deals with death a little more directly and lightly than most of our stories do, although that is something of a trend in animation. Or maybe it's just a trend in Tim Burton's material. Yeah, probably that.

Either way, ParaNorman does stay just quirky and off enough for me to have been interested in its story, even if that story feels like it's pushing the same old cogs into the same old place.

Its audio is solid stuff, too. That quirky and spooky music fits the film incredibly well, and voice acting is all very solid and appropriate for its scene, whether ridiculously exaggerated in an unrealistic car crash or muted in a tender moment. The audio effects also keep the tone of animated horror very well, with squishy friction as zombies try to paste limbs back on and squeaky pops when somebody steps on a brain.

So, is ParaNorman worth seeing before its ending and its message? If any of the above sounds good to you, then yes, the film is solid enough if not quite spectacular. But, at least for me, that final act and that message drive the film up into stellar territory. Perhaps we've seen and heard them both before, but within the context of ParaNorman I felt that they were more beautifully told than I have seen in a long time.

The Old Republic - Reflecting on the Inquisitor

Article by Randy May

Let me start off by saying that this is less of a review and more of a reflection.  I've been playing Bioware's MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic (SWTOR) for several months now and I only recently got my first character to the level cap.  I'm partial to single player games but because I'm such a fan of the Star Wars mythos, I couldn't help but be excited to take part.

I realize that the game has been out now for months.  Hundreds of reviews have already been written, scores have been given, and people have generally made up their minds about what they think.  So I apologize for being so late to the game (no pun intended), but like I said, this isn't a review but a reflection, more specifically a reflection on one of the game's many stories.

BEWARE! The rest of this article contains SPOILERS.

The class I chose to play as was the Sith Inquistor (think Darth Sidious).  The race I chose was a Sith.  Now for those of you that don't know the difference between a Sith and Sith, click here.  If you read the article or already know anything about the foundations of the early Sith empire you'll know that it enslaved the Sith species and took their name.  It just so happens that the Sith inquisitor begins his story as a slave. But of course this slave is different.  Because of his sensitivity to the force, he is chosen to take part in a gauntlet of sorts, a chance to earn his freedom by showing that he can master the ways of the force.

As a matter of personal taste, I like to role play a little with my characters in games like this.  Because SWTOR in particular puts a lot of emphasis on decision making, I decided to create a moral backstory on which I would base the decisions I made.  For the most part, this backstory was fairly basic.  I was a slave so I myself would sympathize with those whose power and freedom had been stripped from them.  I would see the Empire as a necessary evil, something with which I could gain power but would ultimately need to be reformed.  Finally, I would have no tolerance for those in power who would take advantage of those weaker than themselves  Coincidentally, these are things that were already a part of the story and my role playing fit in nicely.

After much time spent proving himself, my fledgling inquisitor becomes the apprentice to Darth Zash, a master consumed with ancient Sith rituals of power.  As is the Sith way, the fight for power sees Zash betray her apprentice but failing to do so leaves her essence imprisoned in the body of an alien.  It's complicated but not important.  What is important is where to the story goes from here.  Darth Thanaton, recently made a member of the Dark Council, sees my inquisitor as a threat and sends his lackeys to make short work of me.  But my inquisitor escapes and seeks complete one of his old master's rituals, one that will make him powerful enough to defeat Thanaton and take his place amongst the greatest of Sith.

If you've seen the classic Star Wars trilogy you'll know that it's possible for Jedi to live on after death in a sort of ghostly form.  The same goes for the Sith but it is a much more torturous existence.  The ritual that my inquisitor seeks to perform involves taking the power of these "force ghosts" by entrapping them in his own body.  None of these ghosts come willingly but eventually four are enslaved with the promise of their freedom once the deed of killing Thanaton was done.  Yes, that's right. Enslaved.  But we'll get to that later.

Along the way, I found myself making excuses for the power I was gaining so quickly and the means by which I was acquiring it.  For the most part the companions that traveled with me were supportive of my goals.  All except one.  A young female Jedi named Ashara.  Joining me out of necessity rather than choice, she walks the line between peace and chaos, always struggling with her personal beliefs of the Jedi, their code, the Sith empire, and more importantly my inquisitor who claims to have ambitions of reforming the Sith way.  She constantly calls my motives and means into question, forcing me to think about my actions.  Unfortunately, my inquisitor is manipulative, a quality he has gained along with his newly found powers, and soon convinces not only Ashara but himself that what he is doing is good and that his ends justify the means.

In the end Thanaton falls to the power my inquisitor has harnessed from the enslaved force ghosts and I take my place as a new member of the Dark Council.  I'm finally in a place of power, a place where I can change the Empire like I said I would.  But there is still the matter of the force ghosts.  They appear to me, demanding that I make good on my promise to free them.  I weigh my options.  I ask the ghosts if they would find peace.  They say no.  They say the because of my actions I too will face the same torturous fate as them.  With this is mind, the only choice that makes sense is to take advantage of the power I have while I still have time left to use it.

I chose to use the ring for "good."

I denied them their freedom and immediately I understood what this decision meant.  This inquisitor who was once a slave, who once fought for those whose freedom had been stripped from them had just done the very thing he swore he would fight against.  The irony sunk in pretty quickly.  As tragic as this ending is, it was fitting.  His lust for power had cost him his soul, a fate suffered by so many others before him.  The dark side had consumed him.  It had deceived him into thinking he was in control, when really, he had begun losing it the moment he chose to enslave those weaker than himself.  Denying their promised freedom only sealed his fate.

I was very taken with this story.  I'll admit, its presentation was not very good.  The game's art style and choppy cinematics did not lend to the story's dark tone and tragic theme.  But as it came to a close, my personal experience with this character was more important than any of the game's shortcomings.  I'm sure that others came away with a very different interpretation of this story.  Maybe they decided to truly be good, to follow the light side of the force rather than succumb to the dark side.  Either way, it's a testament to the writers.  They took a dry and in many ways dying genre and breathed a bit of life back into it.

Episode 7 - Spoilers & Memories

If you check the podcast feed on the right side of this page, you'll notice that Episode 7 - Spoilers & Memories is out now! You can find it here or through the iTunes store.