Beta Weekend - A Hell of a Good Time

Guess what happened this weekend!  Diablo 3’s Beta servers where opened to everyone on Friday, and boy-oh-boy, did the public participate.  Though I don’t have any official figures, I’ll give you my impressions of all the classes and the new Diablo game in the context of the beta’s presentation.

First off, the Diablo game as a whole feels a lot like the Diablo 2 that I remember; loot is plentiful, gold drops like candy, dungeons are random yet familiar in reruns, and enemies explode in the beautiful explosions that upgraded graphics allow for.  If the production-build of Diablo 3 merely keeps these feelings of nostalgia that the beta offers, Blizzard will have a smashing hit (though I’m not saying that it won’t be anything but).

The 2 qualms I could find with the beta’s setup is that during play, the “normal” difficulty – the only challenge level offered – was by far too easy, and that the dialogue was shameful.  Nearly every character class burned, beat, and blasted through undead hoards like a hot knife and unholy butter.  It was nice for getting through the entire content of the beta on my first play-through, but it left me wanting more.  The dialogue was not something a company like Blizzard should be giving – cliché statements, bare-bones explanations, and the most dry feeling behind the lines delivered gave the sense that this was a student project that did all the voice acting with the programming team.  A man needs to kill his wife because she’s going to turn into an undead?  I’ve heard better emotion from someone killing an insect.

But how did the classes handle?  I beat the beta with the witch doctor, playing for about 3 hours to reach level 10.  After that, I played every other class for roughly a half-hour, each one conveniently reaching level 6, and stopping before entering the crypt to find a crown.  With that in mind, my review:

Witch Doctor – My first pick was chosen because it could summon.  With spiders and demon hounds, no-one could touch my character, since the mobs agro-ed the spawns.  The downside is that the summons don’t do a lot of damage, but they make that up in the number of creatures you can create, along with the area denial effects the witch doctor brings to the game.

Barbarian – The only “hardcore” character I created (if I die, I die permanently), this is definitely a damage class.  Though the first few levels leave the barbarian soft to blows, after getting some armor, the damage that the class deals-out more than makes up that bad feeling.  However, there was an imbalance between the solo damage abilities and the crowd control attacks; it just felt off.

Demon Hunter – The best thing I can say about the demon hunter is that the range on this class is quite superb.  This leads to superb crowd control, as the traps and devices that go along with the special attacks really keep all mobs under lock-and-key.  The regular “click” attacks are a bit mediocre, but I must mention that this is the only level 6 class that I wanted to continue on with to get more abilities.

Monk – Now let me introduce damage, I mean the monk.  If you can’t guess, the monk is quick to hurt others in a brutal fashion.  I can’t tell if the monk is susceptible to taking a lot of harm itself, but I was burning through enemies so fast they couldn’t land a blow.  Despite the lack of any sort of ranged attack or ability, I did seem to destroy enemies faster than any other class.

Wizard – One thing I noticed about this class is the number of critical hits delivered.  That was handy with all the ranged abilities, but the wizard is the only class I found that had a semi-ranged attack: a lightning bolt that only reached a few yards.  The attacks were very slow, and not that powerful.  Poor damage per second is not a good compliment to a soft character; my least preferable class.

So, with the Diablo 3 beta now closed to the public, and the game set for launch May 15^th, I can say that I had an enjoyable time.  The classes are varied and distinct, with all the great characteristics that made D3’s predecessor one of the best games of all time.  Given the good qualities of the beta, the nagging let-downs of dialogue and lack of challenge in the design this late in production is disappointing, especially with a title coming from a company like Blizzard.  All-in-all, I had a good time with Diablo 3 and I look forward to the launch mid-May.

Take care, and I’ll see you in Hell!

• + Distinct and varied classes.
• + Random dungeons.
• + Plenty of loot and mobs to drop it.
• - Poor writing of dialogue with sub-par delivery. 
•  A fix: Blizzard has the assets to invest more in script writers and voice actors.
• - Dumbed-down difficulty.
• A fix: Respect the skill of the player and give more imposing enemies; it’s Hell on Earth!

To Dream of an Undead Nightmare

To create an entirely new campaign wrapped in the utility of a DLC is a daunting task, even for an astounding studio like Rockstar.  Creating a living, breathing world of monsters that delivers one of the best, if not the best, stories from an expansion is even more difficult, but Rockstar’s done it with the stand-alone zombie western Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.

When first entering Undead Nightmare, I was dropped-off exactly at the midpoint of the original Red Dead Redemption game, enjoying the easy life set for me from the first game.  Though to know what happened before is helpful in grasping some of the relationships the characters have with each other, Rockstar delivers enough ambiguity to keep the relative histories vague for new players, while retaining the entertaining nostalgia veteran players have from the first game.  So armed with this inside knowledge, I begin.

Immediately, the game is filled with hair-raising action, as John Marston (the protagonist of RDRUM) battles his friends and family in his nightwear.  To uncover why his loved ones are attempting to maul him, he sets off to find associates from his past for a cure.  However, it is soon discovered that the undead are stampeding (ok, ‘shambling’) all over the western frontier.  This began a long and beautifully crafted campaign for my next 10 or so hours.

Initially, the world is quite unforgiving.  Hordes of undead soak ammo like sponges to water.  I found myself madly fleeing through the crowds to snag a bullet or 2 from foes finally laid to rest, all the while kiting a mob behind me.  Many times I got surrounded, eaten and beaten to a pulp in mere seconds of melee.  Even after more powerful and efficient guns are found late-game, with ammunition no longer a major crutch of play, it was easy to become stunned into bloody submission by being pulled off my horse, run-over by bullish zombies, and utterly engulfed in a throng of putrid, violent limbs.  Certain perks and steeds help Marston on his way, but no matter the unique brutality of some weapons exclusive to RDRUM, zombies don’t care if their buddies vaporize next to them, as long as the player ends as the main course.

 Galloping through New Austin, I was exposed to many branching theories as to why the world was in chaos.  The uniqueness of the ‘why’ Armageddon’s happening really speaks to Rockstar’s insight into the disorganization that may occur in society, and lends to a believable backdrop of the stereotypical zombie apocalypse scenarios modern culture holds.  Included are some tragically comedic breaks in the pressure of the plague, but those may be Undead Nightmare’s weakest points.  Some of the ‘humor’ is over-done in a way that almost caused me to feel bored, or made it apparent that the situation was beyond ridiculous.  There are points in the game where John Marston could easily save those he knows from undead consumption, but chooses not too; instead, neither ending their suffering before they die, or ending their damnation as undead.  This was not a flavor I am used to from Red Dead Redemption, thus is the only real deviation from the norm that partially subtracts from the game’s experience.

Overall, this one-disk, stand-alone game was truly a blast to play.  Having barreled through 100% completion, I feel that the West has been won, despite the hocus-pocus dealings of its inhabitants.  I can’t say that there is a plethora of stuff to do after completing the main story, but the things to do won’t make you feel worse toward the game in any way.  And heck, it is always fun to expunge zombies with explosive cannons!  So, especially concerning that this holiday season is coming up, I suggest nabbing this good game for no more than $15, even if the parent game, Red Dead Redemption, hasn’t been played (though, if it hasn’t, GO OUT AND PLAY IT NOW!!!).

But, before I go, here is something new I am going to try after all posts from now on: my ‘critique!’  Let me know how if this works, and take care.

• + Use of zombies plays to cultural stereotypes, instead of trying to hide the fact of how cliché it is.
• + A model of how to construct an apocalypse in history usually reserved for modern times.
• + Varied, one-of-a-kind weapons with quite pleasing effects of destruction.
• + Nostalgic enough for familiar players; ambiguous enough for new players.
• - Not much to do after the story is completed.
• A fix: Include an exclusive end-game monster or series of clean-up quests to keep the player engaged.
• - Overused, sometimes misplaced, humor situations that seem unrelated to the fiction of the world.
• A fix: Lend some of the classic RDR investment by the player into the cut scenes, so as to keep the gamer concerned, even if not providing as much tension.

Extracting Fear from Extraction

I was being railed down a corridor, see, just minding the business of finding every little ammo/health/secret item in the level that was smoothly flowing by, when a freaking necromorph popped-out of a vent to suck my face!  After a few hard shakes of the controller, the beast was beaten off, but was immediately joined by a frikken legion of zombies.  This fearful encounter is one of many frights in Dead Space: Extraction, including the emotion from your allies.

Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to 2008's Dead Space, taking place in the day before Isaac Clarke (protagonist of the series) arrives.  It follows – literally follows; it’s a rail-shooter – a detective leading a rag-tag group of survivors through the hellish confines of a planet-side colony and the halls of the Ishimura.  Frequenting common locations from the Dead Space lore (and some very new locales), anyone who’s played DS will swoon with nostalgia.

There are a few return characters as well gracing the game as the new persons you play as.  I have a beef, though, with these well-meant but poorly executed actors.  The first is, namely, that any person can easily see that these characters are just actors not paid enough.  During the most intense of exchanges, lines are delivered flatly, without conviction or urgency (something that a zombie outbreak would surely entail).   This is especially seen when one of the characters loses an arm, but is A-OK, running through the ship, single-handedly destroying zombies before getting to safety. The 3D models look worried/amused/confused/scared, but emotion is left behind in the sound booth.

Along with the places and persons of Dead Space, the reeking terror is back as well, despite the slow dialogue.  Necromorphs are killing everything, and Extraction places the player into positions that send familiar chills down the spine of the gamer.  This dreadful feeling has been long-missed since my last Dead Space 2 play-through.  With the usual jack-in-the-box thrills, the unending onslaughts of the dead, and tight-corner caution, this freak-fest will get the adrenaline pumping. These scares are only magnified by the harshness of controls (the game is meant to be played with a motion control device).  Scares here are great and of distinct Dead Space flavor, but this is only because the best characters (the necros) deliver the creepy atmosphere for play.

Overall, Dead Space: Extraction is a good game to play for those looking for an easily delivered thrill.  Without much character to the characters, don’t expect a solid narration when running through the ship to go along with scary encounters.  Don’t let the plastic personalities keep a horror lover from playing this game, though, but if a title like Dead Space, Dead Space 2, or similar title is available to play instead, a gamer’s priorities may need to be set.

In other news, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is being played.  That title is already a blast to play, so it’s easily guessed how the review will be.  Until said review, take care!

5 Chris Totten - How to Zombie

Necroludology: Discovering How to Make Zombies Scary Again

Zombies are a symptom of lazy game creation?

Too cliche?

Game Zombies Fail At:

·         first enemy fought in a horror game

o   They are horror components, thus do not guarantee a horror game

o   They are "Goombas" of games - easy cannon fodder

·         Power fantasies

o   masculine stress reliever to the point of silliness

Principles of a Zombie

·         Zombie as:

o   a personal antagonist

o   a natural disaster

o   a definer of space

o   a time limit

o   an effect on mental health

History of Zombies

·         Voodoo Zombies

o   Sorcerer will curse person to die, then take buried body as a slave without a soul

·         The word "Zombie"

o   Walking corpse creature - see “revenants” below

o   Spirit of a dead person

o   Ghosts and walking corpses

·         Ancient times

o   Goddess Ishtar threatens to have the dead consume the living

o   Revelations has the dead rise and terrify the living

·         Revenants

o   Common N. European legends

o   Corpse reanimated by spirits or by body's own will

o   Come back often for revenge or terror on the living

·         Draugr

o   Found in Scandinavian sagas

o   Guard barrows, often their own graves, filled with treasure

o   Can kill people and turn them into draugrs

o   Much like the modern zombie infection

·         Ghul or Ghoul

o   Middle Eastern legend

o   Sucks blood

o   Shape shifts into who they most recently ate

·         Jiang shi

o   Sleeps in coffins

o   Drains life force

o   Hops after victims

o   Greatly resembles vampires

Evolution

·         Frankenstein - science created revenant

·         Herber West-Reanimator - hoard of animalistic zombies

·         I Am Legend - viral outbreak of blood-sucking vampires

·         Night of the Living Dead - establishing walking corpses that eat humans to create more zombies

Personal Antagonist

·         e.g. The Walking Dead

o   Loved ones are what change

o   A progressive turning of a main character

·         e.g. The Keeper's Diary

o   Findable journals

o   Audience fills in the blanks

All problems are too big.  It is easy to imagine a zombie in the street, not a financial meltdown.

Watching a person turn without ever seeing them as the evil they become.

Natural Disaster

·         Dispel myths about zombie apocalypse

o   Don't be a hero - protagonists are not more powerful than zombies

o   Zombies aren't evil - no room for negotiation or rational thought; the Freudian ID

·         "A Weather System"

o   Zombie herds move as a system (The Walking Dead; World War Z)

Definers of Space

·         The shrinking fortress

o   zombies boarder a space

o   invasion reduces the space

o   Defining where the hero can go

o   *narrow space

§  confined, unable to move, choke points

o   **intimate space

§  can reach where things are by inherent abilities

o   prospect space

§  wide open space of exposer, lack of cover

·         * Farmhouses are stocked and homely.  But vulnerable with zombies outside.

·         ** Malls are wide with all stores open.  Invasion turns familiar shops into a perversion of spaces.

Let them become alternative architecture.

Let them herd the player into where you wish them to go.

Time Limit

§  Time is drama

§  Moaning will cause a domino moaning effect, with each zombie going toward the last moan

o   closer and closer the distance shrinks the longer the effect continues

§  Sound as a definer of how much time before being overwhelmed

Mental Health

§  Abjection

o   something that is normally appropriate, but is now perverse

o   a dead body moving around

o   a once living body not moving and cold

o   a loved one zombified to eat you alive

§  Reaction to Apocalypse

o   uselessness

o   crazy

o   imitation of zombie

o   despair

               

Conclusion

Understand the parts of being a zombie for the best zombie possible!

The Thing, a Dead Space Predecessor pt.2/2

NOTE:  THIS POST INCLUDES SPOILERS!  Don’t whine and cry if anything gets ruined for you.  A fair warning’s been given.

A few months ago I had the great time of playing through a little game.  You may have heard of it: Dead Space 2, the critically acclaimed sequel to Dead Space.  This game of unremitting terror follows Isaac Clark, a lonely engineer, who seeks to escape the clutches of space monsters.  Other than saying that both Dead Space and Dead Space 2 are must-plays, I must say that the series shares more than just creatures from the cosmos with The Thing.

In the way of monsters, Dead Space’s Necromorphs and The Thing’s Thing both hail from being locked-away in a form of cold storage for years, being accidentally discovered and revived by exploratory teams.  After killing everyone that first discovered the creatures, Necromorphs and Things infiltrate the next group of rescuers (aka unsuspecting saps) to wreak as much chaos and havoc as possible in the hopes to spread across humanity uncontrollably.

Reproduction happens by absorbing organic matter.  Necromorphs can grab bodies or weakened humans and mutate them into viciously spiny zombies that proceed to go make more bodies for further Necromorph infestation.  They don’t stop until a “critical mass” is achieved with organic matter, on the scale of hundreds or thousands of bodies in one place.  Though it isn’t explicitly stated that the Thing can absorb dead bodies, the monster infects any living cell (freshly dead bodies will continue basic cellular processes for many weeks after bodily death).  Those infected cells then can mutate on-the-fly; first appearing as a normal human or animal, they may quickly Hulk-out into massive beasts, full of tentacles and barbs.  Further, if a Necromorph or Thing is chopped up, it may not be dead; heck, it may be even more dangerous, splitting into separate parts to body-rape the poor sucker fighting it!  But both types of zombie don’t like fire much, especially since being frozen doesn’t kill them.

Lastly, the humans, the heroes of the story!  Both Isaac from Dead Space and the Antarctic team in The Thing are essentially maintenance personnel.  Though they are quite intelligent, they aren’t the smartest or strongest people around; they instead use their wits to wield common tools about as make-shift weapons to combat the enemies they face.  Isaac and the Antarctic team, though ingenious, start to go crazy, directly or indirectly, from the encounters with the beasts.  This is most certainly not helped by Necromorphs and Things personifying people personally close to the heroes.

In the end, though, the nightmares from space are seemingly defeated, though the fate of our heroes, and if the zombies are truly gone, is left uncertain.  In their wake, the entire setting of the story is in fire and ashes.  Plagued by recurring horror, our unlikely protagonists are left to carry on in sequels and prequels that are looked forward to by fans of all colors.

So, how does the amazing sci-fi horror of Dead Space relate to the eerie terror from The Thing?  Well, you certainly have read about a few common factors.  These two tales, though they have different entertainment mediums, are frikken amazing, and should not be missed by anyone!  They elicit genuine fear, being superb examples of any horror genre.  I must thank you for the long read, but please let me know in the comments if there are any other connections that can be made, or if you have a favorite section of either Dead Space or The Thing.  Give them a play, give them a watch, and give my future posts a read as well!

The Thing, a Dead Space Predecessor pt.1/2

NOTE:  THIS POST INCLUDES SPOILERS!  Don’t whine and cry if anything gets ruined for you.  A fair warning’s been given.

On Tuesday night, I watched The Thing, directed by John Carpenter.  It had been on my “to-watch” list for a while, and I am ashamed I waited so long to see it.

The story revolves around an isolated, American Antarctic team that come into contact with… the Thing, after it is chased to them by the remnants of a Norwegian team.  This Thing is in the form of a dog from the team from Norway, and had previously obliterated that team.  The two Norwegians conveniently died, leaving the Americans without a clue as to what is now in their midst.

Very quickly, the team sees that this dog is something monstrous, as it proceeds to attempt to absorb their dogs.  It is ghastly, gross, and consists of some of the best monster effects I’ve ever seen.  Throughout the movie, the team is busy trying to figure out which of their members have been infected by the Thing, turning on each other while subsequently being attacked by the creature.  In all the action, the main characters find out that the Thing is actually an alien that crash landed hundreds-of-thousands of years ago - being preserved in the ice of the continent - and can absorb the cells of any other creature and create a perfect copy; imitation happens in about 2 to 10 minutes.

The end of the movie is a cliffhanger, but the action throughout is in a constant ebb and flow in a crescendo of fire, ice, and gooey monster bits.  Oh, and spider heads.  The frikken monsters can fall apart into many monsters.  There is a shocker as well in that killing the Things doesn’t always leave them dead.  Is any of this sounding familiar yet?

Continued on pt.2!