Travelogue: PAX East 2013

Man, PAX is a crazy experience. If you've never been, you have no idea what you are missing. The sheer scale of everything is almost indescribable, but I'm going to try: Imagine a giant hall, that's four levels high, filled with tens of thousands of people. Now imagine that every single one of those people is a huge fan of whatever you're a fan of, be it video games, music, whatever, and they have all gathered together to celebrate the existence of whatever that thing is, and to talk about and prepare for its future. A giant party where every guest has something in common with everyone else, and no matter where you are; on the bus, waiting in line, sitting down and eating, wherever, you could turn to the person next to you, a complete stranger, and start a conversation knowing that you both enjoy the same, or at least similar, things. PAX has a sense of camaraderie and community that I don't get from other conventions, but that is just one of the many, many reasons why PAX is my favorite convention by a wide margin.

This year at PAX was better than ever for me, in no small part because this was the first year where I had the time and money to attend the convention all day, all three days. With that much time I got to see everything I wanted to see and more. I saw some awesome panels, played and saw several games that are coming out this year, and met some great people. To be engrossed in the gaming culture so heavily is a fantastic time. If they held PAX every weekend, I'd be there every time.

Funnily enough, several things that I have complained about on this very blog were addressed at some of the panels I went to. The complaints about Halo 4 that I had were addressed in the form of easier and faster title updates, Future improvements promised for future titles, and a new, free, forge map that will be made available next month. I can't really tell if the lack of fixes to things like custom game options are an impossibility, or just something 343 is holding back on in order to sell Halo 5, but it's nice to at least hear them address it. Borderlands 2 is also getting a level cap increase, and the fourth DLC of the season pass is being called “the biggest borderlands DLC ever".

As far a new games go, I got to play The Wonderful 101, that crazy Pikmin/Viewtiful Joe/Bayonetta game from Platinum Games, and it is very fun. It features a little bit of everything; party management, hack 'n slash, unique uses of the gamepad screen, giant robots, wacky dialogue... I could go on for ages but you get the idea. It's super fun to play too, with lots of crazy and unique characters. Another impressive looking game is Transistor, from Supergiant Games, the makers of Bastion. The wait to play it was up to three hours at times, so I never got to touch it myself, but it certainly looks amazing, and the narrator from Bastion makes a triumphant return. The game could be a faithful remake of ET for the Atari 2600 and I'd still play it if he narrated the whole thing for me.

Also there to be seen Dungeon Defenders 2, which is unfortunately being made into a MOBA-style game. Apparently it will have a "classic" Dungeon Defenders mode, but the MOBA version will come out first. There will be more classes and options available than in the first game, but this is still an upsetting change. Due to the popularity of League of Legends in particular, the MOBA game style and the "free to play, pay for premium" model have become the new standard for online games. It's like how, a few years ago, all the publishers saw the frankly ludicrous amount of money that WoW was making and all decided simultaneously to make MMOs, but then the market got flooded with crappy MMOs that were all overcosted, so no one played them and they mostly fell apart. I would expect that to happen again with MOBAs and free-to-play games in the next couple of years. (Spoiler alert, it's already happening.)

I cannot state enough how much I love PAX. If you ever get the chance to go I urge you to check it out at least once. Unless you have a massive aversion to crowds, you will have a great time. In other news, I picked up something fun for the future of the blog. I still don't have all the details worked out, but next week I should at least have an announcement of some kind. Get hyped for that, because I am.

Well, I Finished Metal Gear Rising

Metal Gear Rising is a fantastic game, the gameplay is solid and flowing, and the upgrades, collectables, and multiple difficulty modes give it lots of replay value. Unfortunately, as glowing as that topic sentence was, the game has its shortcomings as well. The easiest game to compare Rising to is Bayonetta, the two are very similar in terms of gameplay, collectibles  and extra missions. This is of course not a bad thing, as Bayonetta is amazing, but unfortunately Rising doesn't really live up.

The biggest thing I can count against Rising is the length of the campaign. It is criminally short, a mere 7 missions, 1 of which is just a boss fight. The biggest shame here of course is that the game is a blast to play, and I wanted it to last longer. There is an excellent variety in the weapons and tools available, as well as the enemies to fight, and the boss fights are huge and amazing in typical Platinum Games fashion. In addition, there are hidden VR missions to find and complete, similar to Bayonetta's Alfheim missions, and they are a fun distraction from the main story, but I still feel like there is a lack of content. DLC is available, which adds another campaign, but I haven't played that yet.

My only other real gripe is that the story is kind of a mess. Now, the Metal Gear franchise has never been known for simple, easy to follow stories, but everything makes sense and works mechanically. The cutscenes in this game, while fantastically written individually, don't work together to make a coherent story. Side characters are introduced suddenly, and removed from the narrative just as quickly one mission later, and we are expected to care about their plight, and believe that affects Raiden. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but this is one Metal Gear game that could have actually used more cutscenes.

These are minor gripes though, the gameplay is extraordinary. If you are a fan of Devil May Cry, God of War, Bayonetta, or any other game in the spectacle fighter genre, Metal Gear Rising is a totally worthy addition to your collection. The blade mode mechanics add a unique twist to the otherwise tired and true formula, which Platinum Games has gotten down to a science. It says a lot about a game when my biggest complaint is that I wish there was more of it.

In other news, PAX East is this weekend, and I'm very excited for that. 

You may have heard of it.

I'll be there all three days, and I have a full schedule of stuff to see. 343i is having a panel about the future of Halo and the upcoming title updates, which I'm very interested in for reasons I have stated before. Gearbox is also doing a panel about Borderlands where they will be announcing the new character and the next DLC. Blizzard is supposed to be making a big announcement as well, Wizards of the Coast, too, and more. Next week will be my PAX East travelogue, which should be good. I'm definitely going to be starting a video series to go along with this blog as well, which may include convention videos. It'll be interesting to see what the future brings.

Let's Play A Game

Today I'm going to try something a little different. At the time of writing, I have literally just picked up Metal Gear Rising: Revengance, and I'm going to be posting my impressions as I play it. I played through the demo, and thoroughly enjoyed it, but other than that I have had no experience with the game. I've heard that it has been getting good reviews, and that combined with my aforementioned love of Platinum Games convinced me to pick it up, despite having next to no experience with the Metal Gear series as a whole. I know a decent amount about the story of Metal Gear through hearsay, and I made a vain attempt to play MGS3 a few years ago, (it turns out that I am hilariously atrocious at stealth games) but other than that I have no direct contact with the series. Needless to say, this should be an interesting experience.

I'll keep updating this post over the next several hours as I play, with my unedited first impressions. If this goes over well, I would like to start a Wandering Gamer video series on Youtube, or possibly a streaming show on Twitch.tv. I have always had ideas for video series', but until recently I didn't have the resources to pull it off. We'll see what happens, but for now, let’s cut some stuff:

Update 1: Starting to play at 6:00, this game took a while to install, I haven't looked up the filesize, but it's probably pretty big. Also playing on normal, because I've played Platinum games before, and despite 1000/1000-ing Bayonetta, I know not to underestimate them.

Update 2: I haven't even been playing for half an hour, yet I just had a boss fight against a metal gear armed with a plasma cannon which I chopped into pieces while J-rock started playing. I don't even know.

Update 3: This game is basically Bayonetta: Metal Gear edition, and that is an amazing thing.

Update 4: That cat boss from the demo was significantly easier in the actual game. Maybe I'm just better at it now, or maybe they toned him down because he was too tough for focus test groups, who knows.

Update 5: This game is so goddamn silly.

Update 6: Almost two hours in now, the most endearing thing about the experience so far has been Raiden pressing buttons. It's like, everything he does is so flowing and brutal, but then when he has to push a button to open a door all of a sudden he becomes delicate and sensitive. "Oh, I'm sorry door, I don't want to hurt you, let me push your button slowly and carefully so I don't upset you =3 "

Update 6.5: Now I'm imagining Raiden and the door as Krieger and his hologram wife from Archer. "Oh, Raiden-san, please don't hurt me with your powerful hands~ hehehe" "You'll open when I tell you to open Door-chan!" *shakes fist*.

Update 7: Those crocodile guys in the sewers can eat a diiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiick.

Update 8: Was not expecting a ninja turtles reference.

Update 9: OH MY GOD I'M AN ADORABLE ROBOT. GAME OF THE YEAR.

Update 10: I need to take a break from this game. Currently, I'm running around in a sombrero with my cyber-dog, and we're fighting crime together. This game is fantastic, and just the right level of difficulty too.

A Fire Emblem: Awakening Review

Fire Emblem: Awakening represents a lot of things. For one, it is the rebirth of the Fire Emblem series, which has not had a brand new, non-remake game since 2007. This is excellent news because I love Fire Emblem, just as many people do, and it's nice to have a breath of fresh air for the series. Additionally, Awakening reveals a new direction for the series, taking the classic Fire Emblem formula, overhauling elements that hindered past games, and introducing new elements that expand both the gameplay options and the replay value. It also represents Nintendo's first real first party foray into free and paid DLC. This is a really big step for Nintendo, and will probably influence their future pricing and release structure for DLC for other games, but is this a good thing? Read on and find out!

The Fire Emblem series has existed since the days of the Famicom, however the first title in the series to be translated and released internationally was Fire Emblem for the Gameboy Advance, the 7th game in the series. Technically the series' first international appearance was in Super Smash Bros. Melee, which featured Marth and Roy as playable characters, but even in the international releases they spoke Japanese and were relative unknowns. Even to this day, less than half of the games in the series have actually been translated from Japanese, but the ones that are go on to get excellent reviews and decent sales.

Being the first "new" game in 5 years, Awakening offers significant upgrades to the tired and true formula, the most impressive of which is the new support, pair up and marriage system. By pairing up, two units can occupy once square, and by doing so they give each other stat boosts and help each other in battle. In addition to being a fantastic feature tactically, it also enables the new support conversation system. By pairing up and fighting together, your units will develop relationships, and grow stronger as a pair. This character growth is punctuated by support conversations, in which the two characters interact in small scenes. These scenes are all unique for each pair of characters, so it is no exaggeration to say that there are literally hundreds of possible combinations and conversations. The best part of this is how fantastic of a job the translation team did with this game, and the support conversations keep their humor, charm, and uniqueness.

When two units reach a certain level of support, they can even get married and sometimes have children. The children change based on who their parents are, and inherit elements of their parent’s stats, which adds an immense amount of replay value to the game and excellent depth for the later parts of the game, and the post-game DLC, which leads me to my next point:

The DLC for this game is fantastic.

Here's how it works; there are two types of DLC for Fire Emblem: Awakening. The first style of DLC which uses the Spotpass feature of the 3DS, is free. The Spotpass DLC consists primarily of classic characters from previous Fire Emblem titles that you can summon to your world, do battle with, and recruit. They don't have any dialogue, but they do use their original art for a nice bit of nostalgia. There are over 130 of these battles, featuring characters from every game in the series, and there are also other free things like items and sidequests.

The second type is standard paid DLC we all know and love. These DLC chapters are more varied, some being encounters with classic Fire Emblem characters, while others are all new content, and others still are more for grinding money or experience. They release every Thursday, and are only a dollar or two each. Each one offers something new to the game, whether it's a new skill, a new weapon, a new recruitable character, or even a new class. There are also small bundles available that combine similar missions into packs for a discount. Calling back to an earlier post of mine, this is how DLC bundles are supposed to be done, since you can find out what exactly is going to be in each one (the DLC has been available for Japanese versions of the game for a while) and the DLC launches every week, so you don't have to wait months for your content without knowing how good it will actually be.

I highly recommend Fire Emblem: Awakening, it would not be an understatement to say that it is one of, if not the best game on the 3DS right now. I have put almost 100 hours into it already, and I'm not slowing down. The wide range of difficulty options make it a great game for everyone, even if your idea of a good time is resetting on one mission for two hours (Lunatic can eat a diiiiiiiiiiick).