Pop culture and its effect on Achievements

Over the weekend, I unlocked a very random Achievement in Borderlands:

You’re on a Boat! (15G): I bet you never thought you’d be here.

Well, it seemed random at first, but then it slowly dawned on me that it was actually an inside joke based off of the song “I’m on a Boat” by The Lonely Island, a silly yet extremely catchy tune made popular (and somewhat viral) last year on Saturday Night Live. Basically, while wandering around the coastline on Pandora, you’ll see a docked ship all by its lonesome, and upon hopping aboard and exploring it you’ll pop the above. There’s some money and I think a gun cache there, but then there’s also some…uh, porn magazines.

So, yeah, a bit random. Well, it’s a bit random today, being that of May 2010. I’m sure when the game was being produced and “I’m on a Boat” was just about everywhere last summer, this little Achievement got a lot of chuckles in 2K’s offices.

However, give the game a few more years, and I suspect no one will even know where this stemmed from. And that’s my problem with pop culture, especially when it invades music and games. It’s not forever. It’s only concerned with the now and current, and making a quick impression on you, trying to grab your attention with something that oh so recently already grabbed it. I believe there’s a Jason Mraz song where he sings about the love of his life and also drinking from a Starbucks cup; now, I am under no authority to say whether this coffee company will still be around in 2075 (it will), but who’s to say that someone listening to his album then might not get what he’s saying. Because they don’t know Starbucks. Or cassettes. Or payphones. Or whatever. They were not alive to see the culture to pop. It’s a great reason why The Beatles  and games like Suikoden II are timeless, and I now I’m meandering here–and especially over something so silly and trite–but I’m a planner, and I just don’t think You’re on a Boat! was planned out to be amusing in the longrun. If you didn’t pop it fast when the game launched, you didn’t get the joke when you were supposed to.

Y’know, I’m probably the only gamer to overthink something like this…

Two videogames beaten, but not over with yet

Over the past couple of days, I beat two videogames. Namely, Dragon Age: Origins and Pokemon HeartGold. Both will be getting full reviews from me in the near future, one most likely here and one most likely over at The First Hour, but I still want to talk a little bit about them at the moment…since their deaths are so fresh in my mind.

Both of these games are now beaten. I have seen the end credits roll. And yet, against my power, both of these games demand I continue playing them. In different manners, of course.

For Pokemon HeartGold, they are asking me to play the same game again. The only difference is a new skin to it with new Pokemon to collect, but the fundamentals are all the same: explore the land, collect pocket monsters, defeat gym leaders, and rise to the top of another league for ultimate bragging rights. I’m going to do it, but considering that I just did exactly that for 49 hours…well, I’m not terribly excited for déjà vu to set in.

For Dragon Age: Origins, it’s all about playing the game as drastically different as possible. Because what’s done is done. My Grey Warden character defeated the darkspawn (I don’t consider this a spoiler as, duh, you knew it was going to happen) and now there’s nothing else to do. Can’t reload and venture about Ferelden to do sidequests until the cows come home. Instead, thanks to the numerous origins and different classes and varied dialogue choices, one can play BioWare’s fantasy RPG a second time and experience the complete opposite of what they did before. That’s nice. And also, I didn’t do that Achievement boosting trick where you save before you make a big decision, unlock the Achievement, reload, and then unlock the other one. So I’ll be heading back in to side with the werewolves and help the mages in the Circle Tower and so on. To be honest, I’m looking forward to experiencing it all over again.

Now…about these games’ endings. They were totally lame, especially considering the hours spent to get there.

Pokemon HeartGold tossed an extremely tough battle in your face unlike anything your Trainer ever fought against, and I suspect a lot of players were in the same boat as me. Meaning…lots of grinding to catch up and be halfway formidable. And once that’s said and done, you’re treated to a short scene stating your awesomeness and then credits with little animated Pokesprites running around and being silly. Fade to black. Reload to discover you basically only “beat” 50% of the actual game. Laaame.

Talking about the ending in Dragon Age: Origins is a bit more challenging. I don’t want to spoil specifics, but I really felt like there was a lack of imagination in the final battle. Honestly, your team just moves from zone to zone, fighting wave after wave of darkspawn until you make it to the archdemon, and then you fight it and it releases wave after wave of support enemies and then you kill it and then you’re done. And treated to–and I’m not kidding here–static paintings with some tiny text boxes telling you about what happened to people and places in the years to come. BioWare couldn’t even shell out for some voice actor here after all the speaking that when down during my 41 hours of gameplay. Sigh. There may or may not be more to the game’s ending though depending on some choices you previously made. Time will tell in that department. Either way, it felt kind of lame. Like, that boss battle with that giant tentacle-wielding woman-thing was much more exciting (and original) than this. Oh well. Maybe my second playthrough will reveal something else.

But yeah, despite the fact I’m still going to be playing these for some time, they’re definitely getting crossed off the backlog list as completed.

Picking the best origins in Dragon Age: Origins

Having now played through all six opening origin stories in Dragon Age: Origins, I can confidently tell you that some are better than others. In fact, there’s really only two that stand out as great, and the others are more or less perfunctory, a means to an end to learn the ropes and then get your character traipsing along next to Duncan and the path to Grey Wardendom. But first, let me tell you a bit about each…

City Elf

Being a City Elf is no fun at all. Your race has been rendered second class citizens, basically amounting to generations of slavery. However, things aren’t all bad. You’re about to wed some unknown Elf. Hooray! Marriage and bliss! Oh wait. An encounter with a human lord totally rains on your parade.

Dalish Elf

Dalish Elves are the complete opposite of City Elves, in that they are totally free. And they live in the woods. Stereotypically awesome. After you ambush a group of humans trespassing, your character learns of some ruins containing Elven treasure. Ooh shiny.

Dwarf Commoner

You are a Dwarven commoner and also part of the mafia. That is, if Dwarves can have mafias. But yeah, you’ll be going after a guy that tried to swindle your boss. You also don’t want your sister being taken advantage of. Just another typical day under the mountains…

Dwarf Noble

You are second in line to the throne. Not too shabby. However, there’s some darkspawn in the Deep Roads, and you’re put to the task of clearing them out thanks to having  just received a military commission. However, Dwarven politics are the very definition of dangerous, and things do not go as planned.

Human Noble

Your big brother is about to head off to join King Cailan at Ostagar to help fight the darkspawn. After saying goodbye, you tuck yourself in for a good night’s sleep in Castle Cousland, hoping to dream about apple pies and playing in a field with your violent doggy. Then, without warning, you’re awoken in the middle of the night. The castle is under attack. Eep!

Mage

You’ve studied long and hard (hey now!) at the Circle Tower to become a kick-ass mage, learning all the strict laws about governing magic. And you’re now ready to perform the ritual called the Harrowing that will determine whether you are ready to become a full mage. Not all is as it seems in the Fade though.

—

Right. So those are the six origins you can pick from. Of them, the two I’d most recommend to beginning players are the Mage origin and the Dwarf Noble origin. The other four are extremely bland and linear; in fact, I was downright surprised at just how bare bones the Human Noble story was. In that one, you basically talk to your family, go to sleep, kill some assassins, and escape with Duncan. Ba-da-bing, ba-da-boom. Nothing to it.

However, the Mage origin really offers up a unique setting with the Fade and some tough choices that will directly impact a quest later on in Redcliffe. And the Dwarven noble origin was just full of betrayal and sick politics a la George R.R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire. It really pulled the chair out from under me, and gave me a lot of motivation to see how things turned out. Plus, the layout of the Dwarven setting is pretty fascinating, and their culture is rich with lore about Paragons and such. Fortuitously, these two origins also seemed to take a little longer to complete than others, give or take half an hour.

But really, all the origins kind of follow the same idea–live your life as normal until shit hits the fan–and it’s sort of fun to see how Duncan factors into each story. He mostly just acts like the boss of Ferelden and gives crazy orders in a very calm manner, even if they go against everyone else’s wishes. Oh well. That’s how the Grey Wardens roll, I guess.

So that’s the origins for…Dragon Age: Origins. I have no idea if there are new additional ones in Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening though. Not even sure if I’m going to be interested in more darkspawn-slaying after getting through all of the above. We’ll just have to wait and see.

There are some who call me…Ding! Expert

Been taking care of business in Borderlands as of late. And by that I mean…uh, shooting things in the face, grabbing a variety of loot, and leveling up. My soldier character is now an assault rifle-wielding LV. 21 maniac. He also enjoys watching daytime soap operas and Pandora sunsets. Don’t judge him so quickly just because he likes to yell things like “Critical, bitch!” and “Critical, biatch!” when scoring a critical hit. He’s actually a teddy bear.

Anyways, at this point, I’ve now taken down Sledge and unlocked fast travel. Thank the mighty stars on that latter account. I really hate driving in the game, and walking some of these distances to and fro is just not feasible. So yeah, fast travel. Woo. At least this time it was earned ::cough cough Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion cough:: and now I can head back to the Arid Badlands to finish up some other sidequests before getting deeper into the story. If there is a story. Oh snap.

I unlocked five Achievements last night, but here’s the ones I liked the most out of ’em:

12 Days of Pandora (30G): Mastered the technology of Pandora

There are some who call me…Time (25G): Equipped a class mod for your character

Ding! Expert (20G): Earned level 20

That 12 Days of Pandora Achievement is a bit random, but that’s okay. Basically, you had to kill a bunch of enemies in a number of different fashions, and when I checked on it’s status it said I only needed to melt one more face to get it. So I switched out my self-healing grenades with a corrosive mod and chucked a few into a group bandits. They were puddles of goo before they even knew I was there. Muhahaha. Ahem.

Also, my class mod regenerates ammunition. That’s freaking sick.

Borderlands really does take some levels to get going. It definitely becomes much more fun when you’ve increased your inventory a bit, opened up your character’s action skill, and found some weapons you really like. However, as I’m still playing it solo, there’s been a bunch of opportunities that are clearly better suited for a co-op game, such as the boss battle with Sledge. It’s a bit lonely on Pandora. Maybe I can convince Tara to play some split-screen co-op with me…

My brother is an Italian plumber, ask anyone

It’s always nice when an Achievement can surprise you.

Was shooting some skags in Borderlands last night. Pew pew pew splat. Most of them outside of the home base in the Arid Badlands go down pretty easy now that I’m a burly LV. 18 Soldier with some wicked assault rifles and grenades that actually regenerate my health upon killing enemies. A couple took a few more shots than others, and I moved in to finish them off with some melee swipes since I wanted to conserve ammo. And then, unexpectantly, this Achievement popped up on screen:

My Brother is an Italian Plumber (15G): Killed an enemy plumber-style

I wasn’t 100% sure how I unlocked this, but after looking it up, you evidently do damage when jumping on enemies, and I must have taken a skag out in this manner. I seriously thought it had something to do with fire weapons in relationship to picking up the fire flower power (say that out loud, it’s fun). Still, neat and fun, and I’m glad it happened with me oblivious to the fact. Sure, sure, I scanned the list of Achievements for Borderlands, but I didn’t read all of them, and the majority seemed to be unlockable as you gradually proceeded further in the game. No worries then. Play it, and they will come.

All in all, I really like Borderlands…despite its faults. And trust me, I could list them. There are many. A lot of them boggle my mind, and I know that a few more months of development might have polished the game some more. But the shooting is fun, and it needs to be considering, well, that’s basically all you do. Achievement-wise, it’s a great mix of story-based ones, general exploration, do X a number of times, and random gameplay ones (like above). They are unlocking at a nice clip (pun intended), and I’m looking forward to taking on the game’s first major boss: Sledge. Considering how much trouble I had with skag legends Moe and Marley though, I might not be ready for him. Will have to do some more sidequests until I’m at least a LV. 20…

The slow death of videogame manuals

At the end of April 2010, Ubisoft announced it was no longer printing videogame manuals as part of a green initiative to save paper and reduce the publisher’s carbon footprint. Good for them! Boo for us that actually like manuals (in other words, me) and not just for nostalgia’s sake. This is a first for the industry, with no other publisher following suit just yet, but while I can see the pros and cons in this action, I also know that, ultimately, videogame manuals are going the way of the dinosaur.

Thankfully, there’s a site called Replacement Docs, which allows you to download manuals of many, many games, some bereft and others not. The archive is well worth scouring. Do check it out.

Right. So I like videogame manuals. I like them a lot. Some nostalgia points slip into this factoring in that, during both the middle school and high school days, I used to get dropped off at the mall, buy an SNES or PS1 game with allowance money/job money, and then sit in a predetermined meeting area until my mother came to pick me up. I’d use this time wisely by devouring the game’s manual page by page, word by word, image by image. Some times I even read the manual more than once. Trap Gunner comes to mind instantly, and after reading about the game for 20 minutes, I just couldn’t wait to get home and play. At that point, I felt like, thanks to the manual, I was more than prepared for whatever the game was going to throw at me.

And even though nowadays we have extensive previews and reviews online, on-screen button prompts, and in-game opening tutorials, the straightforwardness of “training” yourself page after page feels much more natural. You usually see a picture of the control scheme, some plot background details, learning the menus, maybe some pages devoted to key characters, and so on. Also, some tips and tricks are only mentioned in the manual, like how to crouch in Maximo, a game I bought used and without a manual, leading me down a dark and destined-for-failure path until the Internet told me what I was doing wrong. Thanks, Internet, you big manual yourself.

Also, brand new manuals smell, and you know it. Sure, it’s an acquired taste much like a new car or a really old bookstore, but I tell you this, and I tell you this in all seriousness…it’s a smell I’m going to miss. Ripping off the plastic sealing and stickers to crack open the case and give the game manual its first breath into this world is truly a great feeling. So is taking it out and fanning yourself with it during the summer months. I kid on that front, but I love videogame manuals so much that when I bought Fallout 3: Game of the Year edition back in November 2009, I still read the manual front to end before popping the game disc into my Xbox 360 despite waiting over 12 months to get the game. I think that says something.

Will have to look through my collection later for some examples of great and not-so-great videogame manuals. Cause some are truly a waste of paper, but others…well, they’ve got personality. And do more than just tell us how to play the game; they show us what it’s all about.

Baby, you can drive my car…in Borderlands (cause I don’t want to)

I’m beginning to wonder what videogames with vehicles would be like without their vehicles. Most likely better, to start.

The Mako in Mass Effect was frustrating to control, and unsatisfying when you finally did get the hang out it because then you’re mostly standing still, bunny-hopping incoming rockets, and firing your own weaponry off into the great distance. Not fun, and it might have just been easier–and more fun–to walk the path from Mako point A to Make point B then drive like a loon. I was extremely glad to hear it got the ax for Mass Effect 2 though they seemed to have added in a flying ship of sorts. Not sure how it controls.

In Banjo Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, if a single block was off or the wrong type of fuel was attached, the vehicle would be classified in the local paper as 100% jalopy/clunker/hooptie. This made making your own vehicles un-fun, and using the ones provided by the game until you hit a spot where none of them would work. Wish it was a platformer again instead of a car circus.

And Grand Theft Auto IV‘s vehicles are just hahahahaaa ahaha ahahahahah ha. Ahem.

But I’m not here to harp on Mass Effect‘s shoddy future tank or Banjo Kazooie‘s pickiness. No, no. This blog post is all about the vehicles in Borderlands.

To start: WHAT ON PANDORA IS WRONG WITH THEM?

Actually, nothing. But there is something terribly wrong with the control scheme for them. So, once you’re inside the driver seat after accidentally climbing into the gunner seat a few times, you’re ready to burn some rubber around the wasteland. To do so, on the Xbox 360, you have to press forward on the left analog stick. Okay, weird. Old-school design. So how do you steer then? Oh, you also use the left analog stick. “But,” you ask, dear reader, “how can you effectively hold it forward to drive and tilt left/right to steer the vehicle away from sharp rocks?” You can’t.

I really had a lot of trouble figuring out how to use the vehicle once I got in it. And so far, after trying to use it on two missions to speed up travel time, I’ve found myself stuck on a rock or down a ditch thanks to hard-as-vault controls. It really boggles my mind, and I can’t seem to find a way to change the scheme myself. Why couldn’t you hold A for gas and steer with the analog stick? Makes no sense, I tell you.

Now I’m just waiting to unlock fast travel because driving vehicles, especially in a solo game where no one is watching my back or driving for me, is not a good time. Of all time. NOT A GOOD TIME OF ALL TIME. Shooting bandits is much more desired.

Yet somehow–and I assure you there was no skill involved here thanks to previous mentioned controls–I unlocked the following Achievement:

Get a Little Blood on the Tires (20G): Killed 25 enemies by ramming them with any vehicle

Seriously, at this point, I think the only game with vehicles I’ve ever greatly enjoyed is Super Mario Kart. Those things handled perfectly.

Slaying dragons and taking names

Let’s talk about this Achievement I unlocked last night from Dragon Age: Origins, with some light spoilers:

Dragonslayer (30G): Defeated the dragon guarding the Urn of Sacred Ashes

So, the Urn of Sacred Ashes quest is one of the major story-driven quests you can take on whenever you want once you’ve completed the shitstorm at Ostagar. I ended up doing it as my second quest after handling things at Redcliffe, and various forum posters frequently mentioned TO NOT RING THE GONG ON THE MOUNTAIN TOP UNLESS YOU ARE READY FOR A CRAZY BATTLE. I’m paraphrasing there, but the all caps aspect is 100% true. Hmm okay. So I didn’t ring said gong, as I was just a very low level at the time (and playing on Normal difficulty), and then completely forgot about that cutscene where the dragon flew overhead and roared. However, I still got the Urn of Sacred Ashes so…uh, the dragon kind of failed that “guarding” part. Oh well.

But after the Landsmeet, you’re basically told to do anything else you want to do because once you head to Redcliffe again, you’ll be entering the point of no return. Eep. So, last night, I instead ran around to do some more sidequests sitting idle in my questlog, and then remembered the gong. Seeing as my mage was a level 18, and Shale, Alistair, and Morrigan were level 17s, I figured we had a decent shot of taking down a dragon.

And we did, obviously, but it was still a pretty grueling battle. I can only imagine that frustration and heartbreak one might feel taking this dragon on too early in the game. There’s some really great animation work here though, which I hadn’t seen a lot of before because it’s mostly been fights with small-time enemies like bandits, darkspawn, and wolves. The coolest part of the battle happened at the end when Alistair (who I was not controlling) leaped atop the dragon’s head and swung deep with his electrified axe, striking the killing blow. Not sure if that’s scripted or not, but either way, it made the win all the more awesome.

Got some killer loot, too.

With this done, there’s nothing else so major that I want to do before heading for No Return City. Lots of sidequests are still incomplete, but none of them interest me currently, and a couple are based in Redcliffe, meaning…they are impossible to finish at this stage. Woo. So I’m gonna gather my army, try and smooch Leliana one last time, and make a final stand against the darkspawn. For Ferelden!

More Fallout: New Vegas previews are here

There’s been some more preview coverage of Fallout: New Vegas as of late, and I’m here to drool and provide you linky links to all the hot action.

First, IGN has a lengthy look at the beginning of the game and how you’ll come to create your character and so. There’s actually not a whole lot of new details that weren’t already spoiled in print magazine articles a couple months back, but at least we get to see some new pics. Love the one-wheeled robots. And sniping from a dino’s mouth. Can’t beat that with a nine iron.

Then MTV Multiplayer talks a bit how the shooting mechanics from Fallout 3 are being updated to better fit FPS players. For one thing, much like in Borderlands and BioShock, you’ll be able to bring up the weapon’s iron sights to help improve aim and accuracy. And there will be weapon mods available such as extended magazines, mountable scopes, and recoil dampeners. These upgrades will surely help out those that prefer to shoot outside the VATS system (not me).

Regardless, it all sounds good to me. The IGN article took a swing at the fact that, graphically, one might confuse Fallout: New Vegas as simply an expansion of Fallout 3. True, true. But I’m more than willing to give up some graphics polish to have just as much (and most likely more) of the same great content that makes the world fun to play and explore. Hurry on up, Fall 2010!

FIRST IMPRESSIONS: Borderlands

After a short and lighthearted cutscene, Borderlands is off and running, having you pick your character class. There’s four of ’em, and each relates to typical archetypes a la Diablo II such as the assassin and rogue and tank. I, however, decided to pick Roland, the Soldier class. This is rather surprising and I’ll tell you why: I’m always, hands-down, 100% of the time attracted to stealthy characters. In BioShock, I quickly fell in love and never let go of the plasmid that turns you invisible when standing still. Also, in Fallout 3, one of the first things I did on my very first playthrough was acquire the ninja assassin suit that, more or less, turns you completely invisible. In Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater, I would literally hide in the grass for up to twenty minutes, making sure I got enemy movement patterns down and taking extreme caution in every move I made. The boss battle against The End was simply a bowl full of sushi with extra bliss sauce on top.

Case in point: I like taking my time in a gunfight and planning accordingly so as to not ever actually engage with the enemy, but simply take it down hard and fast from a distance. You’d think then that I’d have picked the Siren, a woman all about sniper rifles and phasing in and out the world. But no, I went for the Soldier. Wanted to try playing a game differently for once, and I’m really pleased so far with how it’s turned out.

So, the first chunk of missions are more or less a tutorial, but they do well to teach you the mechanics of the game, and pretty soon the fights begin to intensify, the loot becomes better and plentiful, and the quest log starts to fill up. I played for about two hours last night, got up to level 7, and finished off the first boss, Nine-Toes (also, he has had three balls).

I think the game looks amazing. Rarely has a cel-shaded game ever let me down, and the way the background blurs as you zoom in with your fire-starting pistol is a beautiful touch. The thick outlines and bright character colors contrasting with the drab Fallout 3-like setting make for an eye-grabbing mix. The draw distance isn’t terribly great though like in the newest Prince of Persia where you can see far and wide and it all looks rock solid. And the menu presentation is slick and easy to navigate, which is pretty crucial when it’s all about looting.

My only hesitation so far is in figuring out which weapon is better, and whether or not I should hold on to it or sell it for money. Here’s a helpful tweet tip from fellow Borderlander Greg Noe: It’s good to know about weapon rareness: white > green > blue > purple > orange

Other than that, I just got to the point where I’ve taken on multiple quests at once and have the freedom to explore them at will. Love the challenge log, too, which are like mini Achievements that give you tasks and reward you with experience points. Makes sense to me. Anyways, can’t wait to head back to Pandora tonight!