Mass Effect 2: Immersion is key.

Mass Effect 2. Wow, never has a game caused so much regret for not giving it’s prequel a more fair shake. I actually purchased Mass Effect 1 at launch, as a lover of RPGs and of Star Wars I thought nothing could go wrong. It was traded in within a week. Why? I just could not get the hang of the controls, I’m not a very good gamer to begin with, I’ll admit that. I defiantly look for more storyline and just easy uncomplicated controls when I buy games, but in Mass Effect 1 I died constantly. The game frustrated me so bad because I wanted to give it a chance, I love Bioware. Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Jade Empire were too of my absolute favourite games ever on the original Xbox. Dragon Age: Origins is currently my favourite game, and the only game I’ve been willing to sit and play through the entire 16ish hours of just to see what happens to the characters in the end, the way the story goes, it engrossed me, enticed me. Mass Effect 1 didn’t do the same. It failed to draw me in from the beginning and the fact that the controls were so hard for me to understand (also the fact I was 14) all lead to that game ending back up in EB games as a preowned copy.


I was an idiot kid. Everyone told me that, my friends, people I met on the internet, reviews all told me that my decision to trade in Mass Effect 1 was a total mistake, apparently the game really picks up and from playing Mass Effect 2... I’ll need to go get that pre owned copy I think. Alright, enough talk of gamers regret. Mass Effect 2, where do I begin, the game is amazing, stunning, beautiful, engrossing and even slightly fun to play (once you get the hang of it).

The opening moments of Mass Effect 2 drew me into the game unlike any I think I’ve ever experienced outside of maybe Dragon Age. I was glad I played this game on my own because the :O look on my face would have been hilarious for anyone else to see. And that’s what makes Bioware great, the completely engrossing, visceral, feeling in your gut storyline. They don’t rely on classic clichés or cheap boos and yays, they don’t rely on classic stereotypes, archetypes, and the generated norm. No, they rely on good story telling, something that is missing in games these days. I am a film buff, I love the cinematic experiences, the connection between the characters on screen and the audience, I love the feeling you get deep down in your stomach when the main character is in danger, that connection is something generally missing from video games. And yet that feeling is exactly what Bioware does better than anyone else.

It’s repugnant at this point to stay that the story of Mass Effect 2 is amazing. How many times do you need to be told something before you believe it? It’s not the main storyline that got me though, of course it was interesting, engrossing, visceral, beautiful and heart-wrenching, but no. It was the personal stories of all the crew members. Warning: Spoilers ahead. I’ve never met a crew of more messed up people in my entire life. From Miranda’s daddy issues all the way to Samara’s sexual-serial killer daughter, all of these personalized missions are amazing and they all involve choice and consequences. I love choice and consequences. I loved it in Fable... I loved it in Dragon age, and now I love it in Mass Effect. There is a reasonably linear aspect to the game, as opposed to say Fallout 3, you’re being driven towards a common goal, but the way you achieve it makes you FEEL like it was your choice to go there in the first place. The branching dialogue trees are a great addition to the game, the fact they are fully voiced is also amazing (something Dragon Age 1 didn’t do but Dragon Age 2 will).

That’s another thing, the voice acting in this game is superb and it’s on another level. And I’m not just talking about the main dialogue, not talking about cut scenes... I’m talking about walking into Omega and hearing in the background “Aria’s expecting me... do you know who I am”, or walking through the business sector on Ilium and hearing a conversation between a merchant and possible customer about the product and his requirements. Background noise and ambience is common throughout game and film, but hearing actual conversations, it makes you feel as though the world of Mass Effect is alive, breathing and thriving.

It’s funny that I’ve gotten this far into the review without even mentioning game play. But gameplay well and truly is the least important aspect of this game, Ironic, huh? But it’s true, and that’s not even saying the game play is bad, in reality there’s nothing truly wrong with the game play. But it’s nothing groundbreaking like the other aspects of the game; it’s a shooter, with cover mechanics and a bit of strategic control. That’s all it is and it knows this and does it well. The cover mechanic is quite well implemented other than the fact I find myself often covering on the wrong side of the wall and dying because of it. Everything out about the combat is just what it is, nothing amazing, nothing ground-breaking, but fun enough that it doesn’t become annoying as I jump through plot points.

Overall I have to say that Mass Effect 2 is quickly becoming one of my favourite games. I will never say that it is the funnest or most innovative in terms of gameplay mechanics or combat. But when it comes down to the overall experience and immersion into the game world, nothing beats Bioware and Mass Effect is further evidence that they are leading the way towards the ultimate escapist realism game.

Peace and love kiddos,
The Brandon Bear.

Guild Wars 2: The Hands-off experience.

When you’ve been waiting for anything too long, it’s all but impossible to quell expectations. I can say that by the time Guild Wars 2 information started streaming out of Gamescom and subsequently PAX I was already driven into a frenzy of anticipation. As anyone knows one of the biggest problems for a game is not in the creating hype phase, well placed PR and a good marketing team can do that. But it’s rising up to the expectations that hype has created. Judging by the infinitely positive reviews for Guild Wars 2 thus far, I’d say job well done guys. This blog post is simply to let people know my analysis of the information we’ve seen and get my opinions and expectations out there for Guild Wars 2 thus far.


UI:

A topic of intensely hot discussion throughout the internet has been the very un guild wars like UI presented in the demo. Of course the game is still in Alpha testing, not even Beta so everything is subject to change however I really like the UI from the videos I’ve seen. The “Diablo-esque” health ball may be a far cry from the flat health and energy bars of old but I believe it serves a great purpose. The health ball is smack-dab in the middle of the skillbar, something that I’m sure we will all be spending a great deal of time looking at. In Guild Wars 2 there is no specifically orientated healing class, instead we are all provided with a healing slot skill, thus having a knowledge of your health at all times is now a must. Gone are the days of idlely ignoring that little bar in hopes your Monk, or Hero would see it and heal you in time before you die, thus the central display of this new “health ball” makes complete and perfect sense. Right next to this in traditional bar format is the energy bar. Now the placement of this bar is fine, standard, nothing too bold or new. But it’s an innovation that comes with it, that has sparked the ire of fans of the first game. Energy potions. Energy potions are conveniently located next to the energy bar for use; this to me is a great step rather than allowing it to take up space on your limited skill bar.

Character Customization:

Character customization is big to me, it always has been. I love the escapist and role playing feeling of playing an MMORPG, to be truly engaged I need to be able to create a unique character I identify with. I think visually overall, MMORPGS are moving the right way for customization. Aion online had one of my absolute favourite character creation set ups, visually, with dynamic sliding for both face and body. The visual side of Guild Wars 2’s character creation was not implemented in the demo, but we are assured by way of Colin Johansson, that there will be “Millions of options” to customize our characters. Arenanet is taking an exciting new stand point following on from such games as Mass Effect 2 and Dragon Age Origins, allowing us to make storyline choices in our customization that will end up having an effect on our own personal stories.

Combat:

This is what impressed me most about all the videos I saw, maybe it was because they were usually (the good quality ones) being driven by an expert driver, but combat in this game looks amazing. Fluidity... It’s not really a term anyone would associate with MMORPG combat, you click a skill, it does it, the skill recharges, rinse, repeat. Nothing really changes with movement other than of course the occasional, do it from behind. But you know what’s annoying? The combat in those games isn’t designed for you to move behind the target, so getting behind the target is extremely hard, positioning becomes extremely frustrated and people either tend to stand in one spot (away from the baddies if you’re a caster or directly in front if you’re melee). Guild Wars 2 rewards you for being in the right spot, has such dynamic movement that getting into position seems extremely easy. The addition of the dodge roll looks so well implemented. I had worried after seeing the first few videos how hard it would be to pull off, but tapping twice in any direction is the way they went about implementation and from seeing all the videos, it seems easy. The combat looked like a fun adventure RPG, a-la a “Fable”, but with the depth of having different skills and knowing what the skills do to allow for the strategic feel MMORPGs bring, in particular Guild Wars. Weapon sets are another great innovation in combat, allowing for having two weapon sets to switch out at any time creates great depth as a lot of skills are weapon dependant. Skills themselves seem pretty straight forward at this stage either falling into, support, damage or AoE stereotypes but I’m sure with the use of five utility skills there will be a great amount of customization.

Tyria:

Tyria has grown up, I love Guild Wars 1. Its map is expansive, breathtakingly beautiful... and yet it feels almost juvenile by MMORPG standards. And I say this only for a few reasons, cities in Guild Wars 1 do not feel like cities, Lions Arch, Kamadan and Kaening are all rather small and in peak times they seem so incredibly crowded. The first major city we’ve been able to look at in Guild Wars 2 seems massive, expansive and so amazingly stunning that it puts Guild Wars 1 to shame. Divinities Reach is amazing. I can’t say much more about it, the layout, architecture; everything seems so distinctly amazing and unique. I have one worry about this... Imagine you’re working through your personal story, you’re in your home instance and you want to run off and grab some dye, Divinities Reach seems so massive that it could take a long time to run around it. Of course, this could be remedied with a few map travel points within the city and is not at all a big gripe. Another thing that seems amazing to me is the legacy points in Guild Wars 2, those favourite places from Guild Wars 1 that make reappearances, I know this is going to be a massive geek out for me running around and finding them all.

Dynamic Events:

Okay, we can establish quests are gone. The initial fears that “OH NO! There is a quest step that says gather harpy glands is there!” Can be dispelled now that we’ve seen a lot more of the dynamic events system. Some Dynamic Events are player triggered, meaning yes, there is accepting things, but it’s the difference in the way these works that differentiates from it being a stereotypical quest step. Once accepted the dynamic event will kick off in real time, dynamically evolving based on the amount of people there, what you achieve at each stage of it and the environment around you. There are however events that will trigger automatically all over the world, whether you are there or not. If you’re not there then the area is effected by that, one of the examples given occurs at the Charr Stronghold “Steel-Eye Span”, the “Span” can be taken over by the denizens of the Dragon Brand, and it’s up to the players to take it back and reclaim it. Alternatively, if you are there when they attack and try to take over you can stop it dead in its tracks. This is amazing to me; it gives that real “I have an effect on the world” feeling that the creators were talking about.

Dyeing:

Oh my god, I am a total nut for customization in games as I mentioned before. But this games dyeing system literally made me fan boy out. I can’t believe the amount of depth they’ve added to dyeing, being able to add up to three different colours to one piece of armour, over 200 different colours involved? That’s amazing. Like I said before, MMORPGS are about being unique to me, your own unique character and this option seems to just add that little bit more customization.

Alright guys! That’s everything I have to say for now, I will be writing on each of the professions individually in the coming weeks so anyone out there actually looking at this can have that to look forward too, Also! I will be making a collection of people’s hands on experiences to add to mine hands off experience.

See you all around,

The Brandon Bear.

The Brandon Bear vs. Scott Pilgrim.. vs. The World.

Comic book movies are in vogue. It's become hard to find a person who hasn't seen Christopher Nolan's "The Dark Knight", hasn't at least watched one of the three "Spiderman" movies, or hasn't seen "Iron Man". For years comic books trudged along on the under belly of popular culture, the nerds and geeks clinging to there "1st editions" and "limited trades", rooms without light, late night forum discussions on the finner points of Batmans utility belt. It was all underground. And somewhere along the line someone said.. Hey.. What if we made a movie based on a comic.. but with real ambitions. And thus started the current influx of comic book movies we're beginning to see evidence of everywhere today.

Of course, why wouldn't people follow this trend? The Dark Knight was an overnight sensation, with one of the largest grossing weekends of all time. Hollywood is about making money, "All about the benjamins, baby!", and where the money is they follow. It seems now that all the "big names" in comic books have been picked up, DC and Marvels most famous franchises are all due new movies, sequals and a ton of spin offs in the very near future. And yet, my favourite comic book movie of all (suprisingly even more so than The Dark Knight) came from a little obscure comic book series by Bryan Lee O'Malley.

Scott Pilgrim started his meloncholy adventure from obscuredom to the big screen with a simple one issue graphic novel, released August 18th 2004, Scott Pilgrim's Precious Little Life. And it was all go from there, the novel was a critical success amongst comic critics and popular media critics alike, cited for it's inventive storyline and quirky nature the comic managed to squeeze out 5 subsequent sequals. Flashforward to 2010 and the Scott Pilgrims debut on the big screen lead by a director as quirky and creative as the comic books themselves, Edgar Wright.

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World is a fast pased fun-filled thrillride. That sounds like the blurb off of the enevitable DVD release but it's true. The film begins slowly, we are introduced to the main charactors, Scott Pilgrim (Rating: Awesome), his 17 year old, chinese, catholic high school attending girlfriend Knives Chau and the rest of Scott's band (Amazingly named Sex Bob-Omb). Right out of the bat the pop culture references start and the subtle nuances to classic video games seep in, I can remember grinning like an idiot at the familiar sounds of Legend of Zelda eminated from Young Neils Nintendo DS. Also as prevelent straight out the gate is how amazing and up-beat the films score is, The song over the title credits "We are Sex Bob-Omb"(written by amazing alternative band Beck) is so in your face, garage style it lifts you right out of your chair and slams you back down and says, get ready, this movies going to kick your ass.

And it does. The plot picks up as soon as we are introduced to our second lead of the film Ramona Flowers, Scotts (literal) dream girl. Of course like any dream girl theres about a million barriers in the way of him and her and the most prevalent of these is of course, Ramonas seven evil exes. And thus we reach the main plot points of the film, Scott must defeat Ramons seven evil exes to be able to date her in perpetual bliss.

The visual style of this film is utterly amazing. Even the slower first quarter of the movie shows just how quirky as a director Edgar Wright is. Stunning jump cuts, cinematography, and graphical nuances all create an amazingly comic feel to it, and although I'm not a huge fan of "Woah! Look at me, I'm a comic book movie" in this sence it works. When the action really kicks in this is when the visual style of this movie shows. Fast paced cutting, over the top cgi, and an amazing video game-esque style really make the action in this movie a sight to behold, the ending confrontation at the Chaos Theatre may have one of my favourite action sequences all time (Coins, all I'm going to say.).

The casting in this film was something that worried me when I first saw the initial trailers to it. I will admit straight out that I'm not a fan of typecasting. I like actors who can really break out there traditional roles and work into the movie with there passion and power as an actor. To me, Michael Cera was not this, and the trailers led me to beleive he was playing a rehash from his Juno hay-day. I couldn't have been more wrong, I don't know when it happened but somewhere along the line Michael Cera became a credible action actor during Scott Pilgrim. I think the reason this worked so well WAS because I was expecting dorky Cera.. and I got him for a little while and then, woah, someone "manned up". The casting of the seven evil exes was great, fantastic even. Brandon Roth (Superman Returns) as the super-vegan powered ex was probably one of my favourite things I've ever seen in a film (the whole sequence with him is hilariously entertaining). The support roles were all extremely well played with Anna Kendrick( looking stunning as always) playing Stacey Pilgrim and Kieran Culkin as Wallace Wells giving another suprisely amazing performance.

In summary, this movie is stunning. I am the exact target market for this movie and I can understand why people who go into this without the background knowledge of video games, pop culture and other such little nuances would find it annoying and in your face. But if you're a 15-30 year old brought up in this culture, or you're just a lover of fun film then go give Scott Pilgrim a try. It'll give you a fun ride that'll leave you buzzing for hours after it.

Rating: Awesome. (8.7/10)
Breakdown:
Music: 1.9/2
Visual: 2/2
Casting: 1.6/2
Plot: 1.5/2
Directing: 2/2

PAX 2010 and Gamescom: Guild Wars 2

I'm going to preface this with a simple fact, I am a guild wars fan boy. I have played the game since launch in 2005, had two accounts, played every possession, own every peice of microtransaction and every single campaign. I love the art style, I love the gameplay, I love the story, the lore, everything in Guild wars entices me into it, I am a lover of MMORPGs and for years Guild Wars has been my go to.

So of course WAAAAAY back in 2007(?) when the initial rumblings of Guild Wars 2 began I lept on bored the bandwagon and have not gotten off since. And finally after years of waiting, May 27th of this year.. all of us fanboys and girls were driven into sensory overload with the launch of Arena nets new blog (arena.net/blog) and a stunning Design Manifesto written by head of Arena Net Mike O' Brian. From that point on we'd be given a steady stream of tantilizing tidbits to keep all our mouths watering. Finally, at the end of last month the moment we all had been waiting for arrived.. the first ever gameplay footage of Guild Wars 2.

Unfortunatly it wasn't what alot of people expected and I was there along with them sitting on the Guild Wars 2 Guru forum waiting for any information. Up pops a shaky cam off screen video showing us the first look at this God of Games we'd all been waiting for. And oh my god, the disappointment filmed the forums like the mist rolling over the graveyard at night. Unresponsive AI, a new UI that completally didn't seem GW at all and massive numbers flying all over the screen.. and to top it off, an honest to goodness quest, something we'd been told didn't exist in Guild Wars 2. Our jaws collectively hit the ground.. could this be the end of the excitement.. what was happening.. our world shattered.. and then.. a beckon of light.

It wasn't the demo, it was simply a test run for the showcasing they were going to do running off a developer copy of the game. Phew, collective sigh of relief. And then we started getting the real deal, tons and tons of videos rolling out, off-screen, shaky, but somehow capturing the raw beauty of the game, hundreds upon hundreds of glowing reviews spewed out of Cologne, Germany for the next three days and Guild Wars 2's first official demo was a success.

Move forward a couple of weeks and we arrive at PAX 2010, in Seattle, America. More videos, more shaky cam, a little more english than Germany but still pretty much the same info. But thanks to a few amazing sites and writers (Here's looking at you Rubi from http://www.massively.com/) we were getting a slew of new information with people having more of a chance to rage through the low level human area and charr mid level area.

Some useful links and round ups:
www.arena.net/blog
Rubi's awesome write up.
Guild Wars 2 Guru - PAX thread.
Guild Wars 2 Guru - Gamescom thread.

That's all folks! I'll be writing up my personal opinion on the videos and information flowing out of these demos and will have that up to you in.. a few days. :]

Hello Kids!

Well now!

Where to begin... This blog is nothing more than a simple channel for which I will broadcast my thoughts, gripes and outsider knowledge on such things as music, film and video games. I'm not an expert in the realm of any of these, infact, I really don't know what I'm talking about, so take it all with a grain of salt. I do however, have an absoloute burning passion for these three media outlets. I love them all in different ways and without them and there children I wouldn't be who I am today.

Things you can expect from this blog;

• Reviews; My own personal reviews of games from the past, present and indeed the future. (I have a time machine hidden in the den.)
• Previews; I'll be looking at alot of upcoming games and movies and following there progress.
• News; I'm a media junkie, I will be updating with my thoughts on what is going on in gamer world, the movie world and the music world.
• Randomness; Sometimes I'll post out of pure boredom. Because my life is boring... /sigh.

Links;
Twitter: @TheBrandonBear
Youtube: TheBrandonBear

In game names;
Guild Wars: Brandybear Mcrawr (Not going to monk for you ;])
Xbox Live: BrandyXBL
PSN: TheBrandonBear
I hope I will update this often, I really do plan on making an effort with this, if you're viewing it, please spread the word, thanks alot guys!

Signed,
A Bear named Brandon.