Too Much of a Good thing?

I had long since wanted to play a Swords-and-sorcery type game for a while, and as long as Skyrim was buggy, unpatched and unloved on the PS3, I wasn't going to be buying it.  Instead, I went for Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, a game from the now defunct 38 studios.  38 Studios was founded by baseball legend Curt Schilling, an avid gamer, to create an MMORPG like World of Warcraft.

38 studios got onboard luminaries like reknowned fantasy writer, R.A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane, who created Spawn, on board and acquired the studio Big Huge Games, to produce an introductory game to the Amalur universe.  The single player game would introduce players to the universe before the launch of the MMORPG at a future date.

Sadly this would never happen as 38 studios and Big Huge Games had to file for bankruptcy in May, 2012.  Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is the only game they ever produced.

I got it at Christmas, and from then till about March it took pride of place in my Playstation.  However, in the end, I ejected it unfinished, with maybe a third to half the story left to be told.

The story is pretty interesting if a bit generic and maybe leans on the fourth wall a bit.  You play the Fateless One.  At the start of the game, you're dead, only to be revived in the Well of Souls by a scientist.  At this juncture, you are introduced to the wide range of customisation in the game.  I must have spent that first afternoon mucking about with my characters face.  In the end I got a rather scary looking black man.

In the world of Amalur, everyone is a slave to their fate till they die but since your character has already  been there, done that and got the t-shirt, you have no fate.  This apparently means that you can change the tide of the war that's been going on and maybe save the mortal races from the bloodthirsty and immortal Tuatha Fae who are feeling rather genocidal at the moment.

The story is pretty serviceable.  Salvatore was tasked to create 10,000 years of backstory for the world and some of it is pretty interesting if you like that kind of thing.  NPCs rush to give you all sorts of backstory and all around there are lorestones- magic stones that narrate the story of the land and those who have come before.   It would make a pretty decent series of books with prequels, interquels and sequels coming out the wazoo.   The art and world are bright and nice.  The combat is amazing, and there is a lot to do.  Loads.

And therein lies the problem with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning.  There is too much to do, there is too much customisation, too much freedom.  I played, as I tend to do in these kind of games, as a Rogue- the game calls it Finesse, and it is one of three classes in the game, the others being Might (fighter) and Sorcery (Mage).   Despite this, I could use my level up points in any of the classes to unlock abilities in that class.  For instance, say I just reached level 10, I'd have 3 points to spend in any of those classes I wanted.  While I got some stat boosts from my class initially, I could soon wield greatswords and hammers like the best warrior, despite being a character more attuned to weapons like daggers and bows.

The weapons themselves are pretty neat.  You're allowed to carry two into battle, although you can pause and swap others from your pouch if needed.  Some of them are overpowered though.  Daggers and Faeblades may not do as much damage as greatswords, but are super fast, and in this game speed is everything.  Then there are the chakrams which are mid-range throwing weapons, that come back to you like a boomerang causing damage on both the departure and return journeys.  Almost gamebreaking.

Another thing the game allows you too much freedom with is skills.  there are a bunch of skills in the game but 3 stand out as really important to activities in the game.  Sagecrafting, Blacksmithing and Alchemy.  Alchemy allows you to make your own potions, blacksmithing allows you to make your own weapons, and Sagecrafting allows you create gems that you can then insert into your weapons and armour to give you various boosts as long as they are equipped.

Each of these skills can be allocated points as you level up, which eventually allows you to make better weapons, more complicated potions and better quality gems.  Even before then though, quite early in the game, you can make pretty decent items if you have enough of the easily attainable components.  Want to make a health potion?  get 2 of those plants, and 1 of this plant (both  of which were as prevalent as grass on a savannah) and bobs your uncle.

Early in the game, when gold was tight and health potions randomly dropped were low, death was feared and frequent.  By the time I stopped playing, I had become almost a death seeker in my playstyle, charging into hordes of enemies, provoking trolls that I used to run screaming like a chicken from.  Once I created about 30 health potions at the alchemy lab, and crafted a couple of restoring gems that basically regenerated my health each second, I was almost unkillable.

Perhaps if the designers had restricted each class to one craft it would, and made the other crafted items expensive it would have been better.

Maybe they could have also reduced the number of quests.  Quests make up the gameplay of Amalur. there are story quests, which advance the plot, guild quests, which are a series of related quests that make up a small self-contained story, side quests and tasks.  Each of these gives you loads of experience.  And they are all accessible.  If you're a completist like me, you'll want to do everything and halfway through the game, you will probably be the most powerful being in the area.

I stopped playing at the Battle of Mel Senshir.  All through the lead up to this key event in the game, characters talk in despair about a Creature of Mass Destrutction the Tuatha are going to unleash on the fortress (Mel Senshir is basically all that keeps the Tuatha from overrunning the mortal lands.).  I fought the monster, having moved the difficulty to hard a few hours earlier, and maybe died once.  I was just too powerful.  My weapons too nifty, my armour too restorative.  The monster barely hit me and only messing up on the execution Quick Time Event gave me any difficulty.

Of course there are ways to avoid this.  Avoid doing some quests, ignore that person with the exclamation mark above his head.  Refuse point blank to do some.  I'm actually curious as to what the NPCs say when you select 'I have better things to do' on the conversation wheel.  If you do that, you won't have levelled up as much, and hopefully the game will remain a challenge.  It also means you can  replay the game without doing the same quests over and over, a fact I just realised as I wrote this *facepalm*

I really enjoyed my time playing the game, and I'll definitely play it again sometime.  I'll go about doing quests and owning the crap out of any enemy man or beast that steps in my way.  Maybe I'll even finish it.  It's a great game, I just overindulged.  I was gluttonous.

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is like going to an all you can eat buffet and really trying to eat all you can.  At the end, you're almost like I never want to see food again.  However, if you don't pig out, you try a bit of everything your experience will be infinitely better.  

YA Fiction Reviews: A preamble.

I'm a huge fan of YA (Young Adult) Fiction. I'm not the only one. Gone are the days when people would tut and shake their heads when they glimpsed an adult reading Harry Potter or something similar. Adults reading books aimed at younger people is not as taboo as it used to be. Perhaps it is because it has gotten a lot better in quality. YA fiction when I was growing up would have been Sweet Valley High, maybe some Point Horror if you wanted to feel a bit older- it had more gore and Adult Situations, dontchaknow. Let's face it, they were pretty formulaic and not great.

 Jessica did something stupid, Elizabeth rolled her eyes (the colour of the Pacific). Elizabeth was 4 minutes older, but sometimes it felt like 4 years. Blah, blah, blah. No matter what, it was always resolved in the end (mostly). Sometimes it dragged on for a few books but the plots (evil twins, ancient romances, earthquakes) were more day-time soap than blockbusters like Harry Potter or the Hunger Games.

Somewhere along the line, YA fiction started to improve. Maybe it was because of Harry. Maybe it showed that young people could expect more from their fiction, and their success showed publishers that they could look out for, and promote weightier and better quality books than the ghostwritten stuff they'd been peddling for years. While the earlier Harry Potter books were very good children's books, as the character grew so did the target audience of the books. The last four are definitely YA fiction in my opinion. Since 2000, when Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire came out, and the series hit puberty and became a bit darker and edgier, young people have had their fill of great stories and characters. The Hunger Games, Noughts and Crosses, The Gone series, even Twilight. Where a young person had to re-read their copy of Are you there God, It's me Margaret till it fell apart, if they wanted above average stuff to read, they suddenly had shelves upon shelves of stuff to read.

 New worlds, new ideas, new characters; YA fiction is not afraid to experiment, to set stories in worlds far removed from ours, all the while still dealing with topics that are relevant to young people, and that older readers can appreciate. It's not War and Peace, or 100 years of Solitude, but not every movie is The Seven Samurai or Citizen Kane. I'm young at heart. The heroes and heroines of these books allow me to relive my childhood and the triumphs and mistakes without actually having to go through any of the consequences.

I guess that's why I'm a fan and why in the spirit of writing more this year, I've decided to start reviewing them. Hopefully, you might pick up something you didn't know about, or you might just be pushed to tell me I'm a blithering idiot with my opinions. Either way, it should be interesting.

Back from the dead.

Let's keep this short and sweet. It's a new year, so what better time to start writing again. As a writer, my output is disgraceful. It's time to put what sits in my head on paper, or rather, in this case, in cyberspace. Happy 2013 to the 5 people who read this.

RIP Borders.

I was going through my email half-heartedly, clicking on a litany of ever more vague Gumtree job adverts when I saw an email from Borders- 'A fond farewell...thank you.' I heaved a huge sigh. In truth, if you've kept even half an eye on the publishing industry over the past year or so, you'd know that the bookseller has been on life support. I wasn't shocked, but I was sad.

If you've ever shopped at Borders and signed up for a store card, or vouchers and coupons you probably received the email from CEO Mike Edwards detailing the factors that led to the fall. Bottom line: no one thought that the store was a worthwhile investment, no one was willing to keep it afloat.

Now, I am probably in the minority of those lamenting over the company's demise. Big corporate behemoth with 399 stores, putting little indie bookstores out of business. I can see their point. However, cast your mind back almost 10 years to the wastes of 2003. I was a 19 year old either just emerging from what I like to call a mini-nervous breakdown or right smack dab in the middle of it (your mileage may vary). Alone and depressed, spending entire Saturdays at the newly opened Borders at Ithaca's Pyramid Mall was one of the few bright spots. Finding a nice cosy spot with books too new for the public library to have acquired yet, I would spend hours lost in the pages, only breaking to have a decadent albeit overpriced chocolate muffin.

Or there was the night the fifth Harry Potter book came out and I went all the way to the next town, in Binghampton to pick it up, and meet this girl I'd been chatting to online. It was a rainy night, but the Borders was packed. Children dressed like Hogwarts students. It remains a vivid memory eight years on.

Or how about the fact that it was the only place I could pick up FourFourTwo and World Soccer. Or that it stocked British Maxim which was at the time infinitely funnier than its American counterpart.

Or getting the second PJ Tracy novel, Live Bait half price with my 30 percent off coupon combined with a 20% off sticker. Little victories, but at the time I felt like I was WINNING.

To be honest, it would have been bad business sense for anyone to step in. They would have been basically giving a terminally sick entity something for the pain. The rise of digital media rather than hard copy means that retail outlets are probably going to go the way of the dodo.

It's not just Borders, HMV is rocking, stores like Zavvi have had to close or become online retailers. Ebooks, digital music downloads they've changed the way we consume media. Remember when we used to listen to whole CDs? Or when we'd curse our choice of book purchased in the airport before going on vacation. Those things are a thing of the past. Put your mp3 player on shuffle, and you can go from electronica to country by way of opera. Can't decide which summer blockbuster to read. Why not load them all unto your Kindle and if you get bored with one, just close it, and try the next one with a few clicks or swipes. It all plays in to our increasing ADDness as a society.

I will miss bookstores when the last one finally closes its doors, most likely in my lifetime. Ditto libraries. Imagine a future where there are no more shelves, no smell of old paper, no sound of books being scanned. Just a sterile room with a wifi hub you can download your time-sensitive book from. No browsing, no having your eye caught by an odd looking spine. No recommendations from people. No sitting on the tube and sneaking a peek at the synopses of the paperback the person opposite you is reading, as it'll be the nice black matte finish of their eReader case that you'll be looking at. No more socialising or recommending books you love to others in the store (which is truly not that weird).

It's weird, as the internet becomes ever more prevalent we become ever more insular and closed off personally. Take video games. When I got my PS3, one of my first purchases was a second controller, harking back to the days of 2 player games on nintendo and super nes. I picked up the excellent Burnout Paradise to play with my sister who likes racing games only to put it in and find out that its much vaunted multiplayer was over the internet. I refused to buy last years F1 game for the same reason- no local multiplayer. What ever happened to your friends coming over for a gaming session? Most games to dont allow for that, preferring to make you play against some snot nosed 13 year old on the other side of the world.

Books are like that. Soon our libraries will be personal- intangible files on a device. No more having people go through your bookshelves and asking about this book or that and like that the social aspect of books will be lost or changed forever.

Thanks for the memories, Borders.

Thundercats footage.

When I saw the art for the New Thundercats series about a year ago, I instantly facepalmed. Gone was the classic 80s cartoon style, replaced by cookie cutter anime-esque artwork found in shows like Ben10.

However, having seen this clip I have to say it might not be as bad as I thought, and in fact, could be an improvement.

For one thing, Snarf doesn't speak anymore- Thank you, Jesus! I liked Snarf as a pet, rather than whiny nursemaid. He still retains the skittishness and desire to avoid danger that the original does, but that comes from hanging out with Lion-O who seems to like danger.

Lion-O is an improvement. It is easy to dismiss his new look as some emo Naruto knock-off but by making him a young man? cat? as opposed to the manchild (due to the stasis tube he was in malfunctioning) he was in the original, the series changes the dynamic between the characters in interesting ways. Witness his first reaction when he meets Cheetara.

The series makes Tygra his brother- possibly adoptive since Lion-O and his father don't have any tiger characteristics. Also, Tygra is older but not the heir to the throne. A few things he said in the clip indicate (to me, at least) that he might be jealous of Lion-O, and this could lead to some interesting storylines down the line.

By starting on Thundera, it gives the characters a bigger backstory, even the mutants, who we didn't see much of apart from a scene of two lizards in stocks. The Thunderans also seem to be none too tolerant of other species which should lead to some interesting storylines at least, and at least raise the mutants beyond ineffectual villains for the week.

I wasn't so sure about Wilykat and Wilykit having tails, but apart from that, I thought this new series had potential. Hopefully, a new generation will like it just as much as we liked the old one, but hopefully us 80s kids will give it a chance too.

Not the post I wanted to restart with but...

I don't even know why I am upset. I expected nothing since the draw for this Champions League tie was was made, and yet this even stings more than the Birmingham defeat from last week.

It was at times a heroic performance, and for all of Barcelona's domination, it is worth remembering that we were only one goal away from progressing. It would have been jammy- FA Cup Final 2005 jamminess surpassing levels- but it's Barcelona, the best team in the world (TM).

I have to say that while Barca were good, we could have punished them especially if we weren't down to 10 men. Sound bitter?; It's not. Admittedly Barcelona had a million chances, but whether it's the way they play, whether they were just toying with us, we could have punished them for not taking those chances. Score that needed goal especially in the last 10 minutes and we could have been through. If you add the fact that despite their domination, it took a penalty and a once-in-a-season...once-in-a-career even brain fart from Fabregas to beat us, perhaps this is why this hurts.

A perusal of various Arsenal messageboards has many fans complaining about the Van Persie sending off. I'm torn about this. On one hand, at 1-1, with Barcelona pushing up to get the goal they now needed, an outlet was needed, Van Persie was that outlet. A focal point, someone to worry the defence, someone to give us a fighting chance of holding on to possession in their half. On the other, we didn't threaten much before and who's to say we would have threatened after the fact.

Some people have said that Wenger's strategy was basically the football equivalent of rope-a-dope. Get battered, try and keep close to Barcelona and when they are spent in the last 15-20 minutes, play the Arshavin and Bendtner shaped jokers. The Szczesny injury and the Van Persie sending off might have ruined those plans.

Having 11 men would have helped. But we barely had a sniff, we could barely string 2 passes together even with 11, and it just got worse after the sending off. I am loathe to say the sending off changed things when we didn't have a single shot on goal in the match and Barca had 19.

The one good thing is that the unjust and stupid decision by Mr. Busacca seems to have filled us with indignant anger. It would be nice if we took the anger we feel tonight and channelled it against United. The anger might be misplaced, but if the team were to look at this performance with a dispassionate, unbiased eye, it could cause irreparable damage to our confidence.

Vanquish Review.

Everyone and their cat and dog has pre-ordered or bought Bethesda's Fallout: New Vegas. Except me. I went and bought Vanquish, a stylish new shooter from Platinum Games, who also made Bayonetta.

It wasn't such a hard decision. I have no doubt that Bethesda's game is more epic and varied than Vanquish but I haven't even scratched the surface on Fallout 3.

From the first time I saw the Transformers-like animations and gravity defying quick-time events in a preview of Vanquish, the game has remained firmly on my radar. Does it live up to my expectations?

The games story is your typical foreign baddies (in this case the Russians) taking over a satellite superweapon and you having to stop them before they wreak more havoc. At the time the game starts they have already microwaved San Francisco to within an inch of its life and are threatening to do the same to New York.

It's different from similarly premised games like Metal Gear Solid in that in this case you're part of a relatively huge United States Army task force. Guess what? In early levels, these NPCs they aren't completely useless which makes a bit of a change. Apart from actually being able to take out some of the masses of enemy combatants, giving stricken Marines first aid on the battle field (achieved by moving to them and pressing the action button), randomly gives you ammo or grenades as a reward.

You play Sam Gideon, a DARPA researcher who is ostensibly sent on this mission to get combat data for the hi-tech battle suit he dons throughout the game. He has a secret mission to retrieve Dr. Candide, the creator of the suit, who has been kidnapped by the Russians. Expect lots of twists, turns and betrayals.

I wasn't a fan of the voice acting for most of the characters. There are however multiple language soundtracks on the disc so maybe like most Anime, the original japanese soundtrack will sound better than the English.

The story is servicable but the scripting is a bit a lame. This would hurt most games but luckily Vanquish's gameplay is challenging enough to make the game a worthwhile experience, even if you get the feeling the plot is just there to link the various set pieces together.

Vanquish is hard. On Normal it's pretty tough for your slightly-above casual gamer like me. On Hard and God Hard (which is unlocked after you beat the game once on any difficulty), I don't even want to think about how hard it is. Vanquish is a cover shooter- think Uncharted- that strangely doesn't really want you to spend too much time hiding in one spot and patiently taking out your enemies. I tried to hide out the first time I played and one of the enemy bots sought me out and meleed me to critical health.

To play vanquish like Uncharted would be to do it a disservice. While going gung-ho is inadvisable seeing as only a few shots from the enemy will send you into critical mode (the game calls it AR mode)- a kind of bullet time mode that allows you to evade enemy bullets and attacks and run to cover- the game does expect you to dispatch your enemies with style. The trick is finding that midpoint.

Your suit is equipped with high speed thrusters that allow you to slide across the battlefield at insane speeds. You can also athletically evade and if you hit the evade and target buttons at the same time you will manually trigger AR mode.

It is hugely satisfying to finally get to grips with the control scheme. Imagine taking cover, vaulting over the cover, engaging AR mode so you float Matrix-style, taking out the enemy bots and getting back into cover without them knowing what hit them. In the hands of an expert Vanquish truly hits the heights.

In my hands however, there were many deaths. While the checkpoint systems are pretty kind, each time you restart from a checkpoint takes 1000 points from you score. It's a bit bittersweet to finally beat a massive robot boss only to look at the leaderboards and see that you're 20000 points behind the leaders at that stage of the game. Assuming you care about things like that.

Having a score, and having it means so much in this Web 2.0 world helps add some replay value to a game that is pretty short if you're a hardcore gamer and focus on games (unlike me who tends to nibble here and there at my games). Not happy with your score, you can play it again and try to better it and hoist yourself higher on the worldwide leaderboards. If your friends have Vanquish, it also automatically creates a leaderboard for you guys too for local bragging rights.

There is no multiplayer but there is a tough Challenge Mode which throws increasingly harder enemies at you (with no checkpoints as far as I've seen) that adds a bit of length.

Vanquish is definitely a game you should give a chance. It is stylish. In quieter moments I dare you not to just stop and switch weapons repeatedly. It is the coolest thing I have seen in games this year. The visuals are amazing. Despite being set on a giant satellite they've managed to make the scenery astounding.

And it manages to allay the style with a fair bit of substance.