Games I am Looking forward to this year Part 2

Here is the continuation of the list.

9. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
-Me and Elder Scrolls have only just made up. I didn't like the third game of the series so much and only praised how the world and quests were done while having a very poor made story. When Oblivion came I was just taken back by it. Graphics were high depth, controls were easier, story was decent, and the gameplay of traveling around the world with so many quests was enough for me to spend 6 months playing the game none stop. In the fifth one things are a bit different apparently. They're now doing the whole "Skill by doing" system and getting rid of the class system which I feel disappointed in. The whole skill thing has never really been a friend of mine so already I'm worried. What else I know is that weather will play a big role as well as dragons which are always a plus in my book. So good or bad? I'll have to find out.

9. Batman Arkham City
-Do I really need to say anything? Batman's Arkham Asylum was the first time I ever really enjoyed playing a game with Batman in it. It kept true to the Batman atmosphere and it perfectly mixed stealth and combat in a great single player game. Now we get all this, but in a city? My geek mind just went ballistic. If the first game was great, then I feel that Batman Arkham City will be just amazing.

10. Deus Ex: Human Revolution
-I'm going to say this now. Deus Ex is the greatest game for any Game Designer to study. I am serious, this game is the Game Designer's bible. Fantastic plot, amazing gameplay, great symbolism and theme, and one of the few games to mix narrative and gameplay together perfectly. Now after so long we get more of the transmogrification of humanity in cybernetic future where every action and move you make will have an effect in the world around you. Expect a blog about the series from me sometime after the games release explaining why this is the ultimate Game Designer game.

11. Diablo III
-I've been waiting for this game for too long. The new engine looks great and the fact that this game will also feature Battle.net like Starcraft II only further' s my need for it. Although you can't no longer hire NPC's, instead they come to you, you can still follow the same gameplay with new mechanics such as the Skill Runes combined with the new classes like Demon Hunter, it's sure to not get borning. Especially since the Battle.net feature will allow you to have random created battles and dungeons. The only thing I am disappointed in is that there is no Necromancer class.....yet

12: Mass Effect 3
-The goddamn best for last. Mass Effect 3 is going to be the final chapter of Commander Shepherd and his war against the Reapers. This time the battle goes to Earth as Shepherd must now unite the galaxy and face the greatest threat known to all sapient life while breaking a million year old chain of death. Every action you did in the first two games will finally come full circle and while this is last game you play as Commander Shepherd, this will not be the final game of the Mass Effect universe. I am already counting the days for when I will get this game, put it in my xbox and play until I die.

Those are the games I am looking forward to the most. What games are you looking forward too? Any of these similar?

Tell me about it.

Later

Games I am Looking forward to this year PArt 1

I was going to put a review about Marvel vs Capcom 3 in here, but I'm still analyzing the game to get the right idea of what to write, so sorry.

Instead I will give out this...

As we all know, 2011 is here and that means a new list of games that will be set for us in the upcoming months. There are a lot of games that I am looking forward to this year and here are the ones I want to try.

1. Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II Retribution.
-I am a huge Warhammer 40K fan, I worship it and find it the most epic and creative world ever in the history of fantasy or sci-fi. An expansion pack to the popular RTS's, this game allows us to now play as the Imperial Guard, the main back bone of the Imperium. There are even rumors of playing as the xeno hating, heretic burning, demon hunting Inquisition.With new units, maps, and added gameplay. I'm buying this on steam first chance I get.

2. Dragon Age II
-If you don't know by now, I worship Bioware and the ground they walk on. The sequel to a brilliantly written and well crafted dark fantasy, Dragon Age II takes place on a time scale instead of years before or after the events of DA1. You play as a human only this time, instead of choosing multiple races, but your actions effect a 10 year time span affect the game even more so then the original. A new combat system and dialogue system  are also to be expected in this dark age sequel and it will be interesting to see how different it is from DA1.

3. Warriors: Legends of Troy
-Okay I admit it, I like Koei and their Warriors series. Not for the gameplay related reasons, but how they're able to take historical battles and turn them into giant battle sized levels with each character having a nice personality to it. Some hate the series, some love it. I like it and as a person who's read the Illiad, I'm interested in seeing how they do this.

4. Dissidia 012 Final Fantasy
-I loved the first Dissidia and I'm sure I will love the second. I love how each character representing their world has a combat system that follows their respective one from their games. The music and visuals are awesome of course, but this one really has my interest peaked. It's still one player on one player combat in a huge level, but there is now an assist system which added companions will appear on the level and help you. And with new characters and a 60 hour story, it won't be leaving my PSP for awhile.

5. Dynasty Warriors 7
-I must admit this time I'm not sure. While I praised the art style and choreography of the characters in the 6th one, I kind of was let down by how they only let certain characters have a storyline instead of all of them like 4 and 5. I feel that some characters, like Wei Yan, Cao Ren, and others were all left with little time. In this one I hear that it's going to be a pure accurate storyline on what happened historically with a new Jin force. But there will also be a "What If" mode to allow players to play as the other forces. Still, it might be interesting.

6. Portal 2
-Do I even need to say it? Any gamer I've ever met has been dying to play this game. Portal one was the most innovative and well designed game ever. All it featured was a portal gun, a simple mechanic, puzzles, and a psycho computer who has an obsession with cake. Portal 2 will be all this and more as their is now a multiplayer mode with their own special levels that will require both players to work together to solve the puzzles. When Portal 2 comes out, Steam will be crowded like hell.

7. Duke Nukem Forever
-After who knows how many years, this game is finally coming out. It's been joked, insulted, and wished for by millions and finally this year it shall come. Will it suck, will it rock? I don't know, but when I play this game a void I've had will finally be filled at last.

8. F.E.A.R. 3
-F.E.A.R. 3 is part of a series of games that have not only mind fu**ed me, but scared me which is something video games very rarely do. The final chapter of the F.E.A.R. series, you once again take the Point Man from the first game and now have to destroy your crazed psychic god like mother with the assistance of your vampiric like brother who is alive. With the ability to switch between both characters, gameplay looks like it will be one world....awesome. And since this is F.E.A.R. I'm playing this in the dark damnit.

That's enough for now, I've got school work to do and I'll post the rest later this week while working on my M.V.C. 3 review. Later

Global Game Jam

Two weeks ago I took part in a world wide event called the Global Game Jam. It's when Game Designers all over the world work with others in teams to create various kinds of games from Board Games to Video Games all based around one theme in 48 hours.

My College does this event as well and I decided to take place in it as a participant. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot about working on a deadline and such. Many of the games that were created were awesome and everyone had fun working the late night hours and idea creating moments. Our theme this year was Extinction and the game had to feature it in some form or way. I wanted to do a board game so I teamed up with a friend who also wanted to do a board game named Yenni Brusco. She and I teamed up and together we made two really great board games.

Please check out her online portfolio website at:
http://yennibrusco.com/index.html

One was about the internet going out in Egypt due to the whole riots and such, the other was about a total world order vs an anarcy group.

If you want to do something like this then here's a few ideas:
1. Find a group of friends who are creative and like games like you
2. Pick a time of year your not going to be really busy.
3. Pick a theme you want your game to be based on
4. Try to make your game finished by a certain time limit from 48 hours to even a month or more if you want
5. Have fun

Doing this will give you guys a unquie experience like I had and the fun that came with it. Our games were hits, especially the Egyptian one.
You can check them out on these websites:
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/anarchy-vs-nwo
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/internet-extinction-egypt

Here are some pictures of me at the game jam(Yeah I have a big beard, but hey it's Vermont):

 This is the most of the area where we worked, under Hauke 101. We had plugs, food, soda, coffee, white boards and more so we can work easier.

That's me presenting my idea. I didn't get anybody to join me and I wasn't convincing enough. I guess everyone wanted to do an electronic game except Yenni so we teamed up and made an effort to do both our ideas together.

This is an example on how many computers one group had and this is just one group out of many. Some of the groups didn't work in Hauke and worked in their dorms, but pretty much everyone but our  group had this much tech with them.

Here's another picture with the same idea. By the way, the two guys on the right are two of my teachers. Professor Manley is on the laptop and took part in the jam too while Mr. Ferguson, the other guy, was just helping everyone out

This is Yenni my partner. She's a year older then me and was the brains mostly behind the Egypt game while I was the one behind Anarchy vs NWO. We both helped each other and changed each other' games so I really was glad to work with her. She's a lot of fun and is a great worker.

Here we are working on the pieces for the Egypt game. It took us 2 hours to cut them all and draw the lines for each piece. This was because we didn't have a pair of scissors and we had to use a paper cutter to do it.

Yenni being funny.

Taylor, another game designer, also being funny as well. You need humor and a lot of caffeine to help you get through the late hours.

Here's an overview shot of a protoype version our game Anarchy vs NWO. The board is about half my size and the continents aren't taped in yet. Your going to need a lot colored peices to keep track of everything as well. Also the cards don't need pictures. I just did that for the presentation of the game to the gamers at my school only. The reason why I didn't add the images to the game's document online is I would have to MLA every website I borrowed the images from which was not happening.

Our whiteboard holding our game's mechanics and information. I like making complex games

Sleep....something most got little off as most worked the whole 48 hours. Since ours was done earlier then most we got a few hours of sleep unlike these guys.

Us finally play testing the Egypt game. This was the first one done and the most simplest to do unlike the other which needed more time and work. Our goal was to do two board games, but if we ran out of time we would use this one as our main game.

The overview shot of the Egypt game. It might be a bit confusing to understand all the lines and such, but you'll get right into it soon enough.

Our friends Sasha, Taylor, and John. They made a really great game called Squish.

Check it out here:
http://www.globalgamejam.org/2011/squish

Our Finished Games Both UP and DOWN

Westeners and JRPG's (All photos are not mine)

For those of you who don't know, there are two major kinds of RPG's. The regular RPG aka ones made in the Western World like America and the JRPG aka the RPG from Japan. If you've been following gaming news or critics lately you'll hear about how people are expressing their disinterest to downright hate of JRPG's like the Final Fantasy series and Dragon Quest series.

So how are both so different? Let's take a look.

1.      Graphics

-Most typical WRPG’s are dark and gritty looking graphics to set the mode of a mysterious environment. Games like Mass Effect, Dragon Age, Deux Ex, and Fallout all have an atmosphere that is similar to each other. Iin fact, future post apocalyptic themes are very popular in the western world because we see this theme so often and thus it becomes more familiar to us. 

-In Japan, the graphics and art are very different. Things are colorful and full of life in the JRPG world and each art structure is unique to the core, meaning something different each time. A lot of JRPG’s are anime like and sometimes they have cartoonish looks. This is popular in Japan because their most popular media is anime, a cartoon like show that ranges from various audiences.

2.      Battle System

-All RPG’s need a battle system with numbers, stats, and other familiar rules that RPG’s all follow. This is another major difference between the two. In the common WRPG, combat is Real Time meaning that the player controls the character in battle and can freely move around while commanding his allies or letting the AI take over. In this style of gameplay the player can perform actions at an instant, but that also means the enemy can too and it becomes a challenge for the player to think quick and take action just as quick to win the battle.

-In a JRPG, the most common form of combat is the Turn Based System. This is when the player can plan out his moves in a “Stand By Phase” while commanding his units to do specific actions. When the “Action Phase” is activate, all the commands the player and his allies perform are done as well as the commands of the enemy. Until the player is done with his “Stand By Phase”, the actual actions will not be performed. This is a good system for the long term strategic planer instead of the quick action guy like in the Real Time System. It’s more of a matter of two choices: do you like getting into the action and feeling the adrenaline rush of battle or do you like planning your moves carefully and strategically? JRPG’s also use a Grinding level up system where players must battle opponents in order to level up by searching for them rather than having them come to the player like in western RPG’s.

3. Story
-This is one of the bigger issues that separate the two. In most WRPG’s, the story is not as focused as the gameplay, but the unique thing about these games is that their very open in terms of narrative. A very popular technique is what I call the “Open Narrative Choice System”. Take a game like Knights of the Old Republic. You can choose various responses and change the game’s story, as well as your party, depending on your choices. In the climatic choice in KOTOR, Bastila asks you to join the dark side. If you say yes, nearly all your party members will fight or abandon you and when you win you’ll join the dark side and create a new Sith empire. Declining her does the opposite. 

-What most people assume about JRPG’s is that they focus more on linear storyline and gameplay. This is not always true. JRPG’s do follow a very linear storyline, but some games allow the player to still change the aspects of the ending or the story like the Shin Megami Tensei series. In that game you still need to go through a very linear storyline, but the choices you make can determine your ending. But to a Narrative guy like me, JRPG’s are like our bibles. The stories they create are amazing and the writing talent is just godlike.

Although there are many more examples while these two are different, these three are some of the main ones and the most common reasons. To me however, an RPG is and RPG and it doesn’t matter where it’s from as long as it has:

1.      A good story

2.      Interesting combat system

3.      Creative environments and artwork

4.      Interesting themes

5.      Lasts longer than 30 hours and has repetitive gameplay

If it has any of this, then the RPG is a hit regardless of what type it is.
Try playing a popular game from both side and see which one you like better.
Later