6th Edition Tyranids Wishlist

I’ve decided to do something a little bit different this week and, rather than write about video games, talk about what I’d like to see happen in the 6th edition Tyranid codex for Warhammer 40k. Even though I’ve dabbled in a couple of different armies, I fully consider myself to be a Tyranid player first and foremost. If you follow 40k at all, you’re probably familiar with how disappointed a lot of people were with the 5th edition codex for Tyranids. The Tyranids are an iconic army; they’re the original form of the Zerg race in StarCraft and the focus of the popular old PC and board game, Space Hulk. On the tabletop, they’re unique in that they are easily the most “alien” looking faction and feature some of the coolest models available. I feel like everyone just wants to see the Tyranids get the recognition that they deserve, and there’s no better way for that to happen than for their refreshed rules to accurately portray their style.

So what’s wrong with the current Tyranid codex? More than anything, it funnels you into picking certain units if you want to be successful. Ask any current Tyranid player what the best way to field the army is. He’ll likely tell you that you absolutely need to have a winged Hive Tyrant, a brood or two of Hive Guard, and one or several Tervigons. It’s not so much that these units aren’t cool; they’re very cool, but rather that the only way to be successful with Tyranids is to field these specific things.

Another big problem is that the elites slot is too crowded. There are simply too many elite choices out there that no one has any reason to pick. When compared to the absolute necessity of Hive Guard and Zoanthropes, why would you pick anything else? Ymgarl Genestealers are cool, but being cool won’t win matches. I think everyone agrees that each choice in each slot needs to be both viable and cool.

There are other issues at work in the current Tyranid codex, like the fact that several units have weird point costs that don’t seem well thought out. But rather than pick apart each individual problem, let’s consider some ways the new codex could really make the Tyranids a unique and thematic faction.

Venomthropes

Venomthropes have a kickin’ rad model and the concept of a heavily poisonous Tyranid is really neat. With a few tweaks, Venomthropes could be exactly the kind of support creature many people are itching for. One way to do this would be to make Venomthropes Independent Characters. Let them attach to another brood of creatures and provide their 5+ cover save to that attached unit. Or, alternatively, simply make Venomthropes a unit upgrade option that gives the cover save, in the vein of an optional sergeant. Doing this would go a long way to making Tyranid concepts like “the endless swarm” viable again. A massive unit of Hormagaunts charging across the table fits this theme great and with an attached Venomthrope giving them a cover save, it would actually be a viable way to play!

Hormagaunts

Speaking of Hormagaunts, make them beasts. Seriously, that’s all you have to do. Their Bounding Leap rule could be totally removed for all I care. Hormagaunts classified as beasts would move 12″ in the movement phase and have the Fleet special rule. One of the reasons they’re not so great at their intended “mobile cover” role right now is that they simply move too slow. Plus let’s face it, Hormagaunts are way cooler than Termagants; so let’s make them do their job correctly.

Tervigons

Tervigons are really neat, but enough is enough. The idea of having a monstrous creature in the troop slot is an idea I can get behind, but when you have to use them to be successful, something is broken. Let’s just debuff Tervigons. Make their spawning not as effective or make their bonuses to nearby Termagants not as good, either way make them not required. Now if there was an upgrade you paid points for that dedicated them to spawning either Termagants or Hormagaunts, that would give them some interesting variation.

The Elite Slot

Hive Guard and Zoanthropes are great…too great. Zoanthropes are one of the best anti-armor units in all of 40k. The first time I ever fielded one, it one-shotted a Necron Monolith. But there’s other cool stuff in the elite slot too. The lore and concept for Lictors is awesome, terrifying, and has a real Tyranid feel to it. How about making Lictors able to charge on the same turn they arrive on the table? With the advent of special rules like Interceptor, I don’t feel like it’d be overpowered. Ymgarl Genestealers are cool too, but they’re overshadowed by the requirement factor of Hive Guard and Zoanthropes. I feel like the points cost for Hive Guard and Zoanthropes should be increased so that things like new and improved Lictors feel like a viable alternative. However, the elite slot would still have too many choices in it. The only idea I’ve come up to fix this so far is that maybe Ymgarl Genestealers should be removed from elites entirely. Then make them an upgrade that you buy for your regular troops slot Genestealer broods.

The Fast Attack Slot

I honestly don’t have much experience with Tyranid fast attack. That’s part of the problem, though: nobody got much experience with Tyranid fast attack in 5th edition. When there are so many other models/units that are required to win, there simply aren’t the points left over to try out any fast attack. There’s definitely potential in the Harpy. I feel like a brand new gun option for the Harpy to make it our anti-flyer creature would be a good start.

Tyranid Warriors and Shrikes

I don’t care what anyone says, Tyranid Warriors and Shrikes (winged Warriors) are awesome. They’re so customizable that you can tool them for any army style. However, they’re simply too expensive in points when you consider how easy it is to instant kill them. They need one of three things to make them worthwhile: increase their toughness, give creatures who are in synapse the Eternal Warrior rule, or give them an invulnerable save. I’m going to go ahead and say the invulnerable save is a bad idea, so that leaves two options; either works by me. The Shrikes probably need better armor, too. Also…how about some actual wings in the Warrior kit to make Shrikes? C’mon, guys.

Pyrovores

Who has ever fielded a Pyrovore? I mean, seriously, who’s done it? How about removing Pyrovores from the elite slot and moving them to heavy support. Then, make Pyrovores and Biovores a 2-in-1 plastic kit that can make one creature or the other. Then, make Pyrovores useful. I think they’d be nice if they were retooled into some sort of Skyfire cannon creature. Biovores, however, are terrific. They can just be left alone.

Tyrannofex

Its name alone made me want to field it until I saw its ballistic skill and points cost. I believe there is room for the Tyrannofex to be a useful cannon monster, but that’s certainly not what it is right now. It needs to have the same ballistic skill as a Hive Guard and a somewhat lower points cost. Because let’s face it, nobody is even considering using these things right now.

Carnifex

And finally we come down to it, the most legendary of Tyranid monstrous creatures. Carnifexes are described in the lore as “battering rams” and “living siege engines.” Let’s make them live up to that! They’re way too expensive in points right now and their stats don’t accurately represent what we’re supposed to believe about them. Even worse, currently the most effective way to field Carnifexes is with devourers. The idea of a Carnifex shooting things instead of ramming into them just seems wrong to me. Here’s a crazy idea: let’s make Carnifex broods a troops choice. Maybe you unlock it through your HQ or something like that. It’s a great looking model with great lore, so let’s make people afraid of the charge of a Carnifex again!

There are lots of other things that can be mentioned. For example, the lore talks about how Tyrant Guards are the most heavily armored of all Tyranid creatures, yet they have a 3+ armor save. Hormagaunts are described as self-reproducing, yet there’s no rule in place to reflect this in any way whatsoever. Mycetic Spores, Harpies, and the Doom of Malan’tai all need models. Some sort of assault grenade biomorph is desperately needed. Then again, there are some things that are fine. The Swarmlord is pretty much fine. Trygons are both fine and totally awesome. Mawlocs are, while somewhat novel, fine. Hive Tyrants are fine, though a little over-costed.

People are currently saying that the next Tyranid codex is due sometime early next year. Other people are saying that GW’s philosophy for the new book is that every creature is a viable option. I sincerely hope that ends up being the case because I’m so tired of dual Tervigon armies being led by flying Tyrants and backed by Hive Guard. Let’s see some variation! This is a very exciting time for Tyranid players and hopefully by this time next year, the bugs will have the book they deserve. I’m imagining people playing everything from armies made up of only monstrous creatures to armies staying true to the concept of an endless swarm, and every possibility in between. Here’s hoping it happens!

Review: Bioshock Infinite

It’s hard not to compare Bioshock Infinite to the original Bioshock. The original Bioshock was a near-masterpiece in how it expertly wove narrative, gameplay, and atmosphere all into one cohesive experience. Infinite, on the other hand, just feels like a disjointed mess. To be honest, it feels like the story team was secluded in a room and writing the story they wanted to write while the gameplay and/or environment teams worked in another room on what they thought was another Bioshock game. I’m being vague, so let’s just get right into it.

Bioshock Infinite tells the story of Booker DeWitt, an alcoholic ex-soldier with a fair share of regrets. After building up a large sum of gambling debts, a mysterious entity hires him to find a girl named Elizabeth and escort her to New York. It turns out Elizabeth is a captive of sorts in Columbia, a massive flying city. Originally built by America, Columbia has since seceded from the union and gone a little bit crazy.

It’s an interesting setup and the first quarter of the game actually plays pretty well. It has all the elements you might expect from a Bioshock game: audio logs, loot containers, magic and gunplay, charismatic personalities that love to monologue, strange vending machines, and the like. The problem is that most of the features have little, if anything, to do with the overall narrative. About a third into the game, the story does a very sudden shift into new territory and spirals out of control from there. By the time it’s all over with, you can tell that this replacement plot of sorts is the story the game’s creators actually wanted to tell. I almost feel like it devalued the earlier portions of the game.

And that brings me back to why this game is disjointed. Let’s take a look at it piece by piece. In the first Bioshock, plasmids (essentially magic spells) were a core part of gameplay. Balancing the use of plasmids with the use of guns was part of the fun of combat and the wide variety of plasmids allowed for a variable approach to situations. But the true strength of plasmids was that they were also an integral part of the game’s narrative and world. Plasmids were responsible for the downfall of Rapture, as they slowly drove the citizens insane and turned them into splicers. Even the origin of plasmids (a substance found in sea slugs during the city’s construction) was integral to the game. The use of plasmids was required both to be successful in combat and to understand what had happened to this city.

Compare that to Bioshock Infinite. In Infinite, you acquire vigors (plasmids, just renamed) that have similar effects on gameplay. While I can’t say for sure, I didn’t feel as if vigors were as numerous or useful as they were in the original Bioshock. But more importantly, vigors are absolutely meaningless to the narrative of Bioshock Infinite. Vigors are introduced during a city fair of sorts, but we never truly understand what vigors are or where they came from. We never see if they have had an impact on Columbia. At the end of the day, it just feels like vigors are present in this game because “it’s Bioshock.”

That actually sums up a lot of the problems with Bioshock Infinite. It makes much less sense that there are vending machines selling guns in Columbia than it did in Rapture. But again, “it’s Bioshock.” Recorded audio logs seem few and far between and next to no insightful information is given about Columbia itself. But they are in the game because “it’s Bioshock.” In the original game, we found dozens of audio logs from all manner of people. It was through these logs that the city of Rapture was so well realized. In Infinite, audio logs tend to only come from the major characters and, after a point, only deal in the refocused narrative.

Then there’s the Songbird. This giant mechanical guardian has been billed as Infinite’s equivalent to the original game’s Big Daddies. This comparison is almost unfair, I’d say. The Songbird is a mystery. Its job is to protect Elizabeth and once you break her out, it begins to hunt you. Or at least that’s what you think will happen, but it doesn’t really because you only see the Songbird maybe three times over the course of the game. Even more, we never find out anything about what the Songbird is. Through its expert world-building, the original Bioshock made absolutely sure the player knows what a Big Daddy is. It forced us to observe them, fight them, see how they’re created, and eventually even become one. When you have an antagonist, even an indirect one, you should be able to understand it by the time everything’s said and done. I never understood the Songbird. I never discovered how it was created, how and why it did the things it did, and I certainly never felt hunted by it.

It was disappointing because the sequence where you first encounter the Songbird is extremely strong. The way it’s framed in your view to only give you a quick glimpse reminded me of classic films like Alien and Jaws. After that encounter, it’s much less impressive. You only see the Songbird a couple of times and every time you do, it’s during sequences when the game takes control away from you. While I don’t have the solution, it would have been nice to see the Songbird while I was actually in control of my character. It may surprise some to learn that you never even fight the Songbird. It’s a giant, flying, robotic plot device.

Columbia is visually well-realized, but that’s kind of all it is.

This is what I’m talking about when I say that Bioshock Infinite fails to merge gameplay and narrative in the expert way that the original Bioshock did. While yes, plasmids and Big Daddies were plot devices, they were also important parts of the gameplay experience. You could even call Rapture itself a plot device, but it was still important in every single aspect of the Bioshock’s experience. The Songbird is a plot device, but it exists wholly outside of gameplay. Vigors exist in gameplay but seem to be totally irrelevant in the narrative. Most disappointing of all, Columbia itself is important for gameplay mechanics but seems also to be totally irrelevant to the narrative.

The story that Bioshock Infinite wants to tell you could have taken place in any secluded city in the world. The fantastical hyper-patriotic floating dystopia of Columbia means little, if anything, in the overall narrative. In the first Bioshock, Andrew Ryan said, “It was not impossible to build Rapture at the bottom of the sea; it was impossible to build it anywhere else.” I have always felt like that quotation also meant that the story of Bioshock was one that could only take place in Rapture. The city itself was so intricately folded into both narrative and gameplay that it would have been impossible to set that game somewhere else.

I think that because all of these elements failed to mingle successfully, it made other parts of Bioshock Infinite suffer as well. The combat is just…boring. Vigors don’t change things enough and the variation of guns seems to be artificial. A couple of the guns have two or three variants that behave in different ways. Why not just make a different gun for each of those versions, each with a unique model? It would have been more interesting than re-colored versions of the same gun. But the combat really suffers because, as I said, there has been no effort made to integrate it into the narrative. The combat is pretty much Bioshock combat through and through. But without the narrative hooks linking the combat to the rest of the world around you, it just feels bland and repetitive. However, I will say that using the rails that connect floating building to floating building in order to flank enemies was fun for a bit.

I don’t want to come down too hard on Bioshock Infinite, though. Visually, the game is breathtaking. The art style is very well realized and the city of Columbia is definitely an impressive sight to behold. The color palate is bright and appealing, especially in an age where most first-person shooters are brown or gray. Also, the animation seems to be top notch. Elizabeth’s facial expressions during her conversations with Booker are subtle and realistic and it goes a long way. The story that the game wants to tell you is pretty good too. I think that if they had just made a game without the Bioshock name, telling this story, Infinite would have been a hundred times more successful than it is. It’s a story (and ending) that will leave you thinking for a good week or so after it’s over.

I went into Bioshock Infinite with high hopes. I had seen a bit of the promotional stuff showing off Columbia and I was excited to experience the floating city. I looked forward to understanding what it was and what went wrong for it and ultimately having an effect on it myself. Sadly, about a third or so through the game, I realized that Bioshock Infinite was not the game I was hoping for. Mechanically, it had all the parts of the game I thought it’d be, but the soul and complete vision was missing. Still, I encourage everyone to play Bioshock Infinite and form their own opinion on the matter. But while I keep returning to Rapture every so often, I don’t think I feel the need to visit Columbia ever again.

Thoughts: Magic The Gathering – Duels of the Planeswalkers 2013

This is kind of late, but I’ve been playing a lot of Magic 2013 lately so I figured I could jot a few thoughts down. I haven’t played the actual Magic: The Gathering card game in almost a decade, but Magic 2013 has definitely reminded me how addictive it can be. There are a few problems with how the game mechanically functions, but overall it’s a great taste of Magic that’s pretty accessible to new players and old veterans alike.

Rather than dumping you in and expecting you to build a deck from scratch, Magic 2013 provides the player with a series of pre-made decks, all designed to do a specific thing. If you want big creatures in the late game, the green deck seems pretty good. If you want a large army of smaller creatures, there are both red and white decks that can do it for you. There are even decks designed to make the opponent discard most of his or her own deck, or to heal you beyond any chance of losing.

These pre-made decks make it easy for new players (or people like me, who haven’t played in years) to get into the game without dealing with the frustration of deciding things like “how many lands should I put in my deck?” or “should I have more creatures than spells or vice-versa?” Smartly, the game unlocks a new card for the deck you’re using each time you win with it, so you’ll be able to customize the deck more and more as you play. Magic veterans may be turned off by the inability to have complete control of your deck, but I feel like this game serves more as an introduction to the game and deck building than an true-to-life simulation. It’s certainly made me want to pick up and play the real game.

Magic 2013 features a campaign with plenty of modes and challenges. There are standard matches against A.I. (which can also be played in the custom games mode), as well as encounters, which are basically matches that challenge you to beat a specific situation. There’s also a 4-player free for all mode with some twists involving passive effects, and even a 2v2 sort of deal. The multiplayer is where the game should shine, since most of these modes are available for online competition, but most of the people online were too good for me to handle. Sometimes it seems like they just…do things and I lose.

And that brings me to the mechanical problems with this game. It loves to do things without telling you why or how those things are happening. Oftentimes, an opponent’s card will be flashed in front of you for a fraction of a second before it triggers the intended effect. You can choose to zoom in and read it but that doesn’t stop your opponent from continuing to act. A lot of times it can be difficult to keep up, which results in you not learning what went wrong for you. It’s worst in online play because other players are bound to have cards you haven’t seen or unlocked yet.

My other problem is with how the game controls. You navigate between the various cards in your hand and on the board with the control stick, rather than the d-pad. Instead, the d-pad spins the camera to look at things from your opponent’s perspective (which there’s really no reason to ever do). It’s baffling to me that this flat, largely 2d game is not controlled by the d-pad. Even weirder is that you can’t look at any card any time you want. The game only allows you to select and zoom in on specific cards at any given time. This can be exceedingly frustrating when you don’t know what a card does and it’s sitting right in front of you.

Apparently a Magic 2014 is already in the works, so here’s hoping the mechanical issues are solved in it. Even despite the frustrating controls, playing Magic 2013 has been a lot of fun and I’d definitely recommend it to those curious about trading card games. If you’ve been playing Magic for years, you probably won’t prefer this to the real thing, but everyone has to start somewhere. Now, who wants to pick up some Magic starter decks with me? I’ve got the urge.

Thoughts: Warhammer 40K – Space Marine

Warhammer 40K: Space Marine is a surprising game. At first glance, it’s easy to dismiss it as a cash-in third-person shooter relying on franchise recognition. At second glance, you’ll notice it was developed by a team experienced with the franchise (Relic), though possibly inexperienced in faster paced action games. At third glance, you’ll stop glancing and realize that Space Marine is, in fact, a really awesome game.

Space Marine follows the story Captain Titus, a space marine (surprise, surprise) tasked with protecting a Forge World and the Titan being built there from an onslaught of Orks. A Forge World is basically a factory planet and Titans are pretty much giant mechs. The story is pretty thin, though some interesting twists do happen during the somewhat short campaign.

What’s more interesting is the Warhammer 40K universe that the game takes place in. It’s such a bleak and brutal setting. Standard weapons fire what are pretty much miniature rockets, chainsaws are swords, and orks have somehow pieced scrap metal together into spaceships. I’m pretty unfamiliar with the setting, but the game definitely has gotten me interested in it. I hope this franchise continues and provides more robust stories along the way. Also, I love that even the Orks have British accents. I never tire of hearing a surprised Ork shout, “Spoice Muhreens?! We got a foight here!”

Gunning down space Orks has never been more fun.

Space Marine plays largely like any other third-person shooter. Instead of a cover system, you use quick combat rolls to dodge incoming fire or attacks. There’s a sense of weight in everything you do. Captain Titus looks heavy in all his armor and you can feel it while moving around. Rolling will cause you to thud heavily on the ground and the sprint animation looks like it takes a large amount of energy for Titus to move like that.

The shooting mechanics will feel familiar to most people. Most of the guns are an equivalent to other games; there’s an assault rifle, pistol, sniper rifle, etc. There are also some more creative guns, like a mine thrower, a burst fire flamethrower-type thing, a laser cannon, and more. The game puts just as much emphasis on melee as ranged fighting and equips you with things like chainsaw swords and electrified axes/hammers.

The melee fighting is a lot of fun. There will be several moments when you are completely swarmed by Orks and have the opportunity to just go nuts with your melee weapon. You can chain together simple combos with a few different moves, as well as use brutally animated finishing moves to refill your health. This is actually the only way to refill your health, which is pretty cool. The only problems I have with the melee combat is that I wish it were a little bit deeper in terms of moves available and also I wish there were more finishing move animations. There’s only three or four, so if you’re healing a lot then you’re seeing them over and over.

Multiplayer features pretty deep customization.

Space Marine also features a pretty robust online multiplayer. There are tons of unlockables for your marine, be they armor parts, jetpacks, weapons, or perks. You can also customize the paint scheme for your armor or pick a scheme from one of numerous Space Marine chapters from Warhammer 40K lore. All the standard modes you expect are available: team deathmatch, capture and hold, capture the flag, and some coop content. Capture and hold probably works the best. The multiplayer stuff is a lot of fun and I was glad to see that even now, several months after release, there are still tons of people playing it.

Overall, Warhammer 40K: Space Marine is a great package. It’s easily accessible and by no means requires you to be an expert in the 40K universe. The actual gameplay is familiar and fun, but it’s a shame some of the melee stuff isn’t more complex. The multiplayer has so much to unlock that you could easily get a big enough chunk of time out of the game to justify buying it. It doesn’t hurt that it seems to go on sale pretty often. Here’s hoping we see more Space Marines from Relic in the future.

Thoughts: Star Wars – The Old Republic

If you had told me a year ago that I’d be starting out 2012 by enjoying an MMO, I would’ve thought you were insane. At first, I was genuinely surprised at how much I liked Star Wars: The Old Republic, but when you start to break apart the game’s various mechanics, it does begin to make sense. The Old Republic’s greatest strength? It doesn’t feel like an MMO.

The most striking thing about The Old Republic is that it features a very heavy focus on story. Each of the eight character classes has a unique storyline in the game. The Republic trooper’s squad defects to the Empire and he has to hunt down his traitorous former comrades. The Jedi consular battles against a Dark Side plague that has been infecting Jedi masters. The Imperial agent experiences the distinct differences between the Empire and the Sith. The game almost feels like eight separate Knights of the Old Republic games.

To support this heavy story focus, every quest in the game has a fully voiced intro and conclusion. Every quest. Even the smaller, general ones that every class can do. This one element makes a huge difference in making the game feel less like monotony. I’ve yet to hit a point where I’ll speed through dialog just to accept the quest; if I did that, it’d pretty much just be like World of Warcraft.

Thankfully, the quests that follow the dialog aren’t monotonous either. Very rarely will a quest objective be “kill x number of things.” Actually, killing a certain number of something is usually a bonus objective tied to each quest and is totally optional. Knowing that you’re not required to kill 30 space cats or whatever helps a lot in making the questing stay fresh longer.

Even if you just want to use a lightsaber, there are plenty of options of how to wield it.

Mass Effect-style conversations are in place as well. You can make good or bad choices, which will alter minor things and get you access to various special items. The really interesting thing about the conversations is that you can do them with groups of other players as well. When in a group, you’ll see all of the group’s characters talking and the game will essentially roll the dice to see who gets to talk. It’s really successful in making the multiplayer element mix well with the heavy story focus.

The Old Republic also features some really small yet smart tweaks to the general MMO gameplay mechanics that we all know. For example, auto attack is out of the game entirely. One of the things that bored me so much about MMO combat in the past was that on weaker enemies, you would tend to just let the auto attack play out over and over. It was boring to both watch and play. Combat in The Old Republic feels faster and more involved because of the lack of auto attacks. You’re encouraged to be constantly on your toes and use your skills as much as possible. It doesn’t hurt that the combat animations are really cool and it makes the fighting that much more fun to experience. Enemies in the game also are a lot more aggressive earlier on and will use special skills more often than in other MMOs.

The combat tweaks work well, however small they may be. Also altered were some minor things with regard to transportation. Rather than binding yourself to a single location that you can travel fast to (the hearthstone mechanic in WoW), you bind yourself to each new location you find. Then, when you use your fast travel item, you can travel to any location you’ve already found on your current planet – it’s your choice. Again, it’s another small change that makes a world of difference when actually playing the game.

Fan favorite planets like Tatooine and Hoth are present.

Crafting has been tweaked as well. Every player gets several companions (similar to other BioWare games) who will help them in combat or help them with crafting. You can send your companions off to collect crafting materials for you or even to actually craft items with the materials you’ve got. This design just puts crafting on the backburner so you can keep playing and doing quests while your crafting skills increase in the background. It’s super nice to not have to stand around in a city watching your character twirl his hands around while making the same item over and over.

Really, The Old Republic just doesn’t feel like an MMO. It feels like a Star Wars RPG made by BioWare with a big focus on multiplayer content. For the most part, this is why the game is so good. There are some downsides, though. For example, the game is heavily instanced. A lot of the areas in the game are wide and open, appearing to be set up for a large number of players, yet because there are so many different planets (and two or three instances of each planet), the locales can sometimes seem kind of empty. I’m curious if the capital planets of the two factions will start filling up more once people start hitting the max level.

Other than the instancing and spread of planets causing areas to seem a bit deserted at times, the only other problem I’ve really had with the game is difficulty getting groups together. At first, I thought that the problem was because no players are creating tank or healer-type characters. After a bit more time with the game, I think the problem is really that there’s just not an easy way to find group members. There’s no sort of automated grouping system in place, so most of the time you just end up spamming chat channels to find other players. You can flag yourself as looking for a group, but in my experience no one ever really uses it. The spread of planets could also be hurting the game here. With everyone spread out across the universe, it’s just difficult to find the best place to search for other players. This could easily be fixed with a universe-wide “looking for group” chat channel.

Companions make both combat and crafting much easier.

My complaints here are such minor issues that they shouldn’t hold you back from checking out The Old Republic. The game really is outstanding. Whether you’re a BioWare fan, a Star Wars fan, or an MMO addict, there’s going to be something in the game that really impresses you. The main question now is whether or not subscription numbers will stay up and the game will keep expanding and providing new content. Right now, though, it’s a great game and I do recommend it.

2011 Wrap Up: TrackMania 2

And so we come to the end of this year’s Wrap Up. Today, let’s talk about TrackMania 2: Canyon.

TrackMania 2 is a game that’s exceedingly difficult to describe. At its core, it’s an arcade-style online racer that’s focused on time trials. In reality, that sells the draw of the game a bit short. The game is also a great example of a worldwide community, user-generated content, and casual fun.

Single player content is present but pretty much irrelevant. Its pre-made tracks are very basic and only really good for learning the controls the first time you fire up the game. The single player stuff has leaderboards and medals to earn for beating pre-set times, but there’s not really incentive to go after any of that stuff.

Where TrackMania 2 really shines is in online multiplayer. How it typically goes down is you join a server with 50-100 other people and race time trials for about six minutes per track. Here, all of the tracks have been made by the community. It’s also worth noting that you’re not bouncing against other players’ cars; they race next to you in real time, but the models are ghosts so that no one is in anyone else’s way.

At the end of each track, everyone is awarded ladder points based on fastest time. The leaderboard system is great, allowing you to check your standing at the worldwide, national, and statewide level. Thankfully, poor performance won’t cause you to lose standing. Only other players outperforming you will cause you to fall in the ranks. I enjoy telling people that I’m the number three player in Oklahoma, but I often neglect to tell them that there are only 46 TrackMania 2 players in the state.

The quest to further increase your standing (especially on the smaller, statewide ladder) is one of the greatest draws of the game. This is boosted by the fact that the game isn’t very hard and it’s easy to become competent at it with just a little practice. Because all of the tracks are user-made, there are some challenging ones, but usually six minutes is more than enough time to figure it out.

In fact, figuring out the tracks and the best way to run them is almost like a little puzzle game. The cars have very basic controls and typically all you need are directional buttons and a button for the e-brake. Then, it’s just a matter of figuring out where to place yourself on the track (the “racing line” idea) and whether to use drifting or grip to turn corners. Grip is usually faster and fine for high speed tracks, but sometimes drifting is a must. Also, drifting just looks so cool.

At the end of the day, that’s pretty much what TrackMania 2 is. You can customize your car’s paint job and some servers will run custom music tracks to keep things fresh, so user influence is essentially king in multiplayer mode. There’s also the Valley expansion to look forward to, sometime in the future, which will expand the game’s environment variety.

If you’re the type of person who likes to get all OCD about your lap times in racing games, the idea of retrying a track over and over for six minutes just to shave mere miliseconds off your time will probably be a dream come true. But TrackMania 2 also provides a great time if you want to just play casually for a while. The six minute-per-track design makes it an easy game to jump in and out of when you have some time to kill. Then again, once you start playing, you’re likely to develop a “one more track” mentality and keep playing way longer than you intended.

That does it for the 2011 Wrap Up. It’s been an exciting year and here’s hoping 2012 is even better. Thanks for reading, happy holidays, and don’t forget to play some games over the break!

2011 Wrap Up: Skyrim

It’s time for the next game in the Wrap Up! Today, let’s talk about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim.

I was never a big fan of the Elder Scrolls series. I actually found Oblivion to be profoundly boring. Layer poor combat and a mishmash of bugs on top of that and I simply couldn’t understand what people saw in the franchise.

Because of all this, I went into Skyrim reluctantly. The Internet has been absolutely ablaze with praise for the game, but it’s always better to see the game for yourself. I’m surprised to say that my experience with Skyrim has been largely pleasant. There are certainly problems, numerous ones at that, but I do understand the draw of the series a little better.

I learned early on that it’s key to completely disregard the main story in Skyrim. Not because it’s bad, which it isn’t, but because it’s essentially unimportant. The draw of Skyrim seems to be the idea that you can explore everywhere and just take side quests for whatever you feel like doing. Even if you don’t want to take side quests, there are so many locations to explore and dungeons to clear that the game has more than enough content to support you. When walking around in the wilderness, icons will pop up on your compass when you’re near locations of interest. You may be trying to head to one specific place, but you’ll still feel compelled to make the detours and discover as much as possible. It doesn’t hurt that almost every location is tied to a side quest or an extra task.

The visuals only serve the desire to explore even further. The landscape of Skyrim is detailed and beautiful. Often you can see for miles in any direction and, for the most part, you can travel to anything you can see. The fact that you can see ruins on mountaintops, hike up to the ruins, and experience changes in weather and scenery as you make the trip just enhances the game’s great sense of scale.

If exploration has been the greatest experience of my time with Skyrim, crafting has been my second favorite activity. The crafting system is fairly standard; you smelt ores into bars, use a forge to combine leathers and metals into equipment, and then use workbenches to improve the equipment. There’s just a very tactile feel to crafting. It’s authentic and usually immersive.

If I had to pick a third greatest strength for Skyrim, it’d be the character progression. Skill trees are designed to look like constellations, with each skill being a star. It makes picking skills visually interesting, while the skills themselves all seem worthwhile in one manner or another. It’s great that your abilities level up as you use them, too. As someone who’s never fond of “jack of all trades” RPG characters, I was pleased to be able to just focus on three or four specific skills with which to specialize my character.

The exploration, crafting, and character progression are all good enough to make Skyrim worth checking out, even if you’re doubtful. However, the game isn’t without problems. The most serious of which is the combat. Not unlike Oblivion, combat in Skyrim feels very much like you’re just flailing until the other guy dies. There’s no sense of tactics or strategy in the combat. You can block, shield bash, cast spells, etc., but the different combat abilities never feel like they have a specific reason to exist. When compared to a game like Dark Souls, where everything you can do in combat is very deliberate, precise, and specific, Skyrim simply doesn’t hold up. It’s not unplayable; it’s’ just not very deep.

Other problems in Skyrim are made up of minor design and technical oddities. A lot of times during conversations, there will be only one option when replying to someone. This annoys me more and more each time it happens. If there’s only one option of what to say, why is it there to begin with? It seems like it’s just a “press button to continue conversation” mechanic.

Other strange issues the game has involve visuals. The animation isn’t really all that much better than Oblivion, despite the new engine. First-person animations when you do things are fine, but watching the repetitive animations of other characters can be kind of depressing. Also, when characters speak, only the bottom half of their face animates. And since I mentioned speaking, the voice acting is downright awful. I don’t know that I’ve encountered a single voice in this game that isn’t painful to listen to. There’s one specific Swedish voice that makes up both numerous plot characters and random characters. It’s incredibly jarring to hear so many people with that exact same voice. It’s also really weird when different shopkeepers and guards all say the same thing.

All of the problems Skyrim has are manageable, though. If you’re looking for a game that you can easily lose yourself in (and for several hours), this is the one that’s going to do it. The extreme openness of the game may turn off people who prefer to be guided more, but if you’re looking for a cool world to explore, Skyrim is probably the best equipped game since Fallout 3 to provide that.