Some Stuff What I've Played: A Compilation of Words etc.

It's that low point of the month again, when I've splurged nearly all of my last pay cheque on food and shelter and I'm only left with a pittance to spend on the important things, like games and cinema tickets. To that end, there hasn't been a proper game title that I want to review for a good few months now, and so instead I present to you a few words on a few things.

Bastion

I'd heard a lot about this, Indie Game of The Year 2011, Best Art/OST of 2011 etc. and thought I could shell out a few quid for it.

Turns out, not a bad game. The plot is a bit thin, there's very little in the way of explanation for anything which I suspect is in an attempt to add "mystique" to the game. The combat and upgrade system are fairly mundane, but sufficient to keep the player interested.

Hit with hammer. Repeat.

The big draw is the presentation. There's a smooth talking narrator who guides you through not only the plot but also describes each level, upgrade, item etc. completely removing all need for dialogue. Essentially think of POP:Sands of Time; the entire game is The Prince attempting to convince Farah he is who he says he is and occasionally if you fall to your death he'll chime in with "No no, that's not how it happened..." Bastion's narrator is like that, but slowly moving from interesting to invasive and irritating. Prime example, there's an arena map that can be replayed (by getting high) to earn resources by fighting 20 waves of enemies. Each time you attempt it you have to listen to him drone on about The Kid and his hard life. The art style and visual presentation have been most praised, with the world creating itself piece by piece as you walk around. Seems like a nice idea, keeps the scenery active and interesting....but was probably introduced to save on memory usage, this being an XBLA port.

Arbitrary number score: 6/10. For fans of Indie/artsy/casual gaming.

Killzone 3

Let me first start by stating that I was a massive fan of the original PS2 game, and somewhat enjoyed the PS3 sequel. THIS, however, does not belong anywhere near those other two games. Generic and bland from start to finish, with an abhorrent colour pallet of brown, other brown, slightly shiny brown, grey and poorly rendered green lighting.

The shooting bits seem to have gotten worse since Killzone 2, and there are god awful rail-shooter vehicle sections, but apart from that it appears to just be most of the second game copy pasted with some slightly different art styles and tweaks to the interface. Most notable being an ammo crate every five yards, meaning all the special weapons like the flamethrower, bolt gun and the man-exploding flubber cannon (yeah, you heard me) can pretty much be used constantly. Level design suffers heavily from the chest-high wall plague meaning you can spot an "ambush" a mile off. Even worse is the cover system that uses those chest-high walls doesn't even protect you from the hideous amount of incoming enemy fire you'll be under most of the time. I think somewhere along the road the development team decided that including the ability to have your allies revive you meant that the difficultly curve could be abandoned all together. What they failed to do was path the AI properly so over half of the time I'd Rambo my way into the enemy forces, kill half of them and sacrifice myself relying on The Mouth to resurrect me, only to have the shot list to the side framing him sprinting towards me....stuck on a single brick. URGH.

Nobody Cares

The game says it comes with PS Move enabled, but that's only for single player, doesn't work on co-op and barely works at all. The fine control accuracy and fluidity of movement needed for a non-rail shooter is far too high for motion controls that have trouble navigating a simple menu. Oh, it can be played in 3D, which I strongly advise against as the saturation of awful colours nearly drove me mad, and I was only playing it in 2D.

Arbitrary score: 3/10. For people who require another reason to champion this series but are unaware what makes a good game.

WHY AM I IN THIS GAME?!? - Ray Winstone

Driver San Francisco

You'd be forgiven for thinking that a game called Driver, with a big yellow car on the front and in a series of games all to do with....driving that Driver SF would be a pure racing/driving game. And you're....well, right and wrong.

Just kill them all, Tanner...

So, yes, it does present itself as a driving game. Notice I said GAME, not simulator. For a driving sim you can fuck off back to GT5 with all its neck-beardy P-2-WR accurate cars that handle like drunk cats. This game's got power slides, and even when you don't ask for them it's still got them. But the more important part of this particular fairly generic Burnout-esque title is the interesting and frankly just good use of a single game mechanic. Early on in the story, about 20mins in so I don't consider this a spoiler, Tanner (you) has a car accident and ends up in a coma. Because of this you can astrally project (go with it) yourself into the body of any driver across the entire city at any time. During races you can drive oncoming traffic into your fellow racers, you can use trucks and tankers to block the paths of escaping criminals or just fling mini-van driving "soccer moms" at them til they crash into the nearest lamp post. Totally consequence free, but thankfully not in the "it's OK because you're Russian/evil/12 and trying to piss off your parents" way GTA handles consequence free collateral damage. Oh no, Driver just flat out ignores it.

Aside from that one brilliantly constructed and implemented mechanic, the rest of the game is fairly standard. Story, voice acting, visuals and physics are "enough" to carry the game forward whilst you dick about making two petrol tankers jump each other over and over.

Arbitrary score: 7/10. For people who enjoy Burnout and want a side order of story to go with that big juice car-burger.

Transformers: War For Cybertron

What can I say, it was on sale for £3.50 and I like Transformers so I thought I'd risk it.

All the worst things from...just so many games, I imagine the development team would've had to go out of their way to make this game so bad.

I've played, at time of writing, 30minutes of this. And I intend to give it at least another hour, just to be sure. But I'm fairly certain it is indeed the utter, UTTER shite that it appears to be. Shocking controls, an out-dated engine, offensively original art style (to me at least), repetitive missions and voice acting that is literally unbelievable. As in, how were the publishers happy with A) the script written for the VA's and B) the delivery of nearly every single word. Mind officially boggled. Not to mention the entire game seems to be built around coaxing you to play online, setting up another third part account (last count, I have 12) just to access those parts of the game. Oddly, my main two problems are not unlike those in my last Transformers game review (here), a mostly copy pasted single player and pushing you into playing online mp. I can only hope that, should I ever play it, the tie-in for Dark of The Moon doesn't follow this seemingly compulsory game structure.

Arbitrary score: 2/10. For people with too much time/money/Hasbro fanboyism.

Beat Hazard 

Ending on a high note, thankfully. Beat Hazard is the latest in the music-game genre, previously championed by titles such as Audiosurf. The premise being that you can choose any audio file on your hard drive and the game will map a level around it, with changes in tempo, volume and rhythm all affecting the difficulty, visual style and pace of the game. Whereas Audiosurf managed to take a simple idea and try and complicate it by ramming in different characters and an odd Connect 4-esque in-game mini-game (far too many hyphens) Beat Hazard has literally gone back to basics, by emulating the classic title Asteroids.

An XBLA/PC title with simple controls and a potentially infinite lifespan means that I will be playing this game regularly and perpetually, as it has now taken up residence as my go-to casual game, filling time between all my important business meetings and fundraiser events with the Duke etc.

Here, look at this, click on it to enlarge if you like.

I struggle to see anything there that's not to like, assuming you like A) music, B) space ships with lots of guns, C) asteroids or D) all of the above and are not epileptic. That's a serious point, this shit causes seizures.

Arbitrary score: 8/10. For anyone who likes casual games, music and bleeding eyeballs.

N.B.

Depending on feedback, I might start doing this sort of things more often, a few short reviews in one post instead of a longer article on a single topic.

Mass Effect 3: Plus Some Other Stuff

Colour me a fanboy, but I feel that the Mass Effect trilogy is one of the shining examples of quality gaming in a market too often dominated by absolute garbage covered in the putrid, fetid, stinking bile that is the result of the hyper- games of the CoD generation. Sadly, it seems even this last bastion of solid RPG enjoyment has been tainted. More on that story later.

I bought Mass Effect 3, for the tidy sum of £28, by deftly avoiding any actual shops and doing some incredibly simple online shopping. I cannot believe there are people I know and whom I consider avid and savvy gamers who just blindly pre-ordered from high street shops like Game for nearly £40 (and boy did that go well for them). All I did was use Google Shopping, click the drop down button and select "Sort from Low To High" and saved myself £12. I still got the same experience as you, I still got the game at the same time as you. People baffle me.

Anywho, on with reviewing the game, not the current financial status of the gaming market.

The Tale So Far

I'm in your Citadelz Attack Your Councilz

The third and final installment in the Mass Effect series was hotly anticipated by many thousands of gamers the world over, but what I shall be doing in this review is giving you, my most cherished reader, an insight into what I enjoyed, what I didn't enjoy, and what I got downright angry about from the perspective of a fanboy, in addition to my usual critical analysis of the game.

For those of you unfamiliar with the story let me offer a brief summary. Lots of aliens species and humans co-existing as an Alliance under a Council, living and larking about in the galaxy when all of a sudden giant synthetic death-machines called Reapers show up and start pissing on everyone's parade. During the first game they take the form of Sovereign, a single Reaper vanguard who indoctrinates an entire synthetic race (The Geth) and uses them to get right up the noses of the Council by generally making a nuisance of themselves on a galactic scale. The protagonist is Commander *Insert Pointless Name Here* Shepard, a human soldier promoted into the ranks of The Spectres, part-Jedi part-Judge Dredd, and told to sort this shit out. Which he/she does, mostly. The game culminates in a fantastic battle between the Council forces and Sovereign and it's Geth fleet. Job done, game one over.

Not so tough now, bitch.

Mass Effect 2 changed some things (understatement). Completely new race introduced (The Collectors) indoctrinated and controlled by another Reaper, Harbinger, but this time the metallic bastard just ASSUMES DIRECT CONTROL from way out in inter-galactic space where the entire Reaper armada is kicking its heels. More trolling of the Council, some abductions of entire colonies and a personal vendetta against Shepard catches the attention of a supposed terrorist faction (Cerberus) lead by The Illusive Man, an individual who appears to have humanity's best interests in mind and is combating The Collectors with the help of Shepard and his crew. After figuring out what's actually going on, who The Collectors are and what they want with all the irritatingly voiced NPCs another big final missions is undertaken, only this time culminating in a violently disappointing "shoot the glowing weak-spot three times" battle. And then some funerals.

All up to speed? Good, on with Mass Effect 3.

The Story

Stereotypically Italian: Are you looking at me?

This...is an odd one, frankly. The entire game is basically a mad scrabble to appease everyone with even the slightest quibble with something, somewhere (usually you) in order to cobble together a force strong enough to repel the Reaper invasion which has already begun. In theory, as a fanboy, this is great; travelling the galaxy as an official ambassador with the power to do pretty much anything in order to secure military and scientific assets to combat the Reapers. As I began playing the game I envisaged Krogan infantry battalions storming through breaches in enemy defenses, Salarian STG squads wrecking havoc with sabotage, Turian fleets bombarding from orbit and (something that still makes me giggle) THE MIGHTY ELCOR BATTLE GROUPS, ALL ARMED WITH CHAIN GUNS AND MISSILE LAUNCHERS. 

What it was, in effect, was a spreadsheet. You do some missions, you get some numbers, you get a high enough number, and you can finish the game. Get all the numbers and less people die. Bit disappointing, really. I did enjoy the replacement of that bastard mineral scanner from Mass Effect 2 with...well...the same scanner but now you only have to find one or two things per planet, and at least one is usually something vital to the fleet, like the one Dreadnought the Volus could manage to not sell.

The War Assets spreadsheet is directly affected by another number; Galactic Readiness. Galactic Readiness (think of it as WAAARGH!) begins at 50% and causes any war asset you recruit to only be worth half it's actual value until Galactic Readiness is increased to 100%, which can be done by (excuse me whilst I try not to bring on a hernia whilst I type this) playing.....the....*HMPGH*....online....multi....player....URGH, that was hard to get out. 

So you do all the missions and get all the things and make a big number, and then comes the final battle to save earth. Understandably, it's a tad difficult, the secret weapon you've been building doesn't quite work, and surprise surprise it's up to Shepard to get some jump cables from the back of his '62 Ford Cortina.

Then the end happens. I'll discuss it below the spoiler warning.

The Shooty Bits

One with whom you should not fuck

For those of you who've played Mass Effect 1, I don't think you'd disagree with me when I say the combat wasn't exactly polished. It was solid, but for the most part I found biotic and tech powers to be pretty redundant unless my squad had died and there was Geth Prime or Krogan Battlemaster charging at me. For the most part, it was a cover based shooter, hilariously unexpected from a game using the same engine as all the Gears of War games I know! Chest high walls a-plenty. Enough said. 

Still, don't fuck

Mass Effect 2, whilst still running on that engine and based loosely around the same combat style, brought in a whole new necessity for powers. Overload for dropping shields or frying Geth, Incinerate for burning through Krogan or YMIR mech armour and various ammo types for added oomph. The biotic powers were vastly improved, Shockwave demolishing enemies along a straight line, Pull and Levitate isolating and exposing targets even when behind cover and the Vanguard Biotic Charge for those of you who enjoy headbutting a charging Krogan. Being able to whip powers around corners was illegal levels of fun.

(Click to enlarge)

All of these changes I loved. What I didn't love, was the stupid need for ammo. Mass Effect 1 worked fine based on cool-down weapons, there was absolutely no need to include 'thermal clips.' Nor was there really a need to include 5 pointless heavy weapons. A grenade launcher that had a tiny AoE, a rocket launcher that sounded and felt like you were firing slow-moving spit balls, a freeze ray of pointlessness, a laser pen and a nuke launcher that you could only fire once due to it's huge ammo-chomping power cells. The only up-side from the weapon alterations was the limitation, and therefore specialisation, of each class into only two weapons (except Soldier class who gets more, but that's only for boring people who want to ignore 2/3rds of the combat potential in the game). But even this irked me. There was only one class that could take sniper rifles, my standard favorite in every game, and that class had no biotic powers, and biotic powers are hilariously brilliant. Personal peeve, really.

In Mass Effect 3's combat, and you've pretty much got a refined version of the previous game. Each class has two pre-determined weapons, but can equip up to five (assault rifles, sniper rifles, shotguns, pistols, SMGs) but the added weight of each weapon drags your biotic/tech abilities cool-down way low. Example, I spent my entire play-through with an AR/SR combo and had +91% recharge rate on all my powers. The minute I equipped a shotgun for one missions it because -4%. The tech and biotic powers are mostly the same, and Shepard can still choose to learn one of the powers his team mates possess, only this time there are no loyalty missions, you just have to go talk to Garrus about calibrations and then you can use his AP ammo (godsend).

Related to the combat system is the upgrades. The armour customisation seen in Mass Effect 2 is sill the same, however the weapon system is a hybrid of 1 and 2. In the first game, Shepard finds different weapons from different brand names each with a different emphasis on damage, rate of fire or accuracy, and each weapon from a brand had a scale of roman numerals to indicate its level. In the second game, you got PISTAL and then BIGAR PISTAL. Thankfully, in Mass Effect 3, the numeral system returns but this time you just pay credits to up the stats of your favorite gun. In order to unlock new weapons you must find or purchase them throughout the game. Weapons also come with two slots for customisation now, included scopes, extended clips, weight reducing materials and melee attachments, allowing you to tailor your weapons to suit your class and play style. A perfect weapon system, that balances customisation and simplicity very well.

Palavan burns and I shed a tear

The visuals during combat are exceptional, character models rendered in a very pleasing way, scenery even more so especially some of the more expansive battles, with near, medium and far objects all detailed enough to really sell the scene.

Here's a sneak-peak of some of the criticism to come later; there's no way to holster your weapons during a combat missions because (apparently) there wasn't enough memory to cope with it. I don't even.

The Talky Bits

Warning, Being a dick may
wreck your face

Story, story, story, story, story, story, semantic satiation (look it up). That's Bioware for you! Leaning heavily on the school of thought that games should be a narrative, and not an arcade shooter, the Mass Effect series is about as in-depth as games can get, without being artsy and pretentious (cough...Dear Esther...cough). Conversation choices and decisions you make within the game effect your Paragon/Renegade morality rating. During the first and second games, it was nearly required that you be one or the other in order to get access to the highest level conversation options. For Mass Effect 3 the system has been altered to incorporate a Reputation meter which fills up when you perform Renegade OR Paragon actions, and combines your two scores to give a total Reputation. So, you can be bad to the bone and be 100% Renegade and still have as much influence over certain characters and situations as you can as 100% Paragon. A solid re-evaluation.

Conversation and decisions have always been important throughout the series, with several decisions made during the first game coming back to really bite you in the arse during the third, something that I both approve of and am irritated by. Example; during a certain missions to a certain planet in a certain second game, I may or may not have decided to destroy some research data, thinking it was the right choice at the time. Conversation in the third game with a key (and favorite) character nearly ended with said character blowing my head off/me having to do similar to him because of the decision I made during the previous game. This is a great, really great, game mechanic.....but it irritates me when choices I've made have such drastic unknown consequences. Now I'm aware of them, my next play through will be all centered around making sure I've laid down the groundwork for all the best things to happen during the third game.

The plight of the galaxy is well conveyed, allowing you to justify any renegade choices you have to make in order to secure the allies you need. There are several in-depth missions which culminate in a straight choice between helping one race or another, and whilst these choices are basically a test of fanboy love for one species over another, they are irritating in themselves as it appeared to me to be quite difficult to appease both sides, effectively alienating several races and leading to the deaths of certain main characters.

The Online Dickbag Bit

Yep, there's online multiplayer. Ohhhh how I raged when I found this out. A stupid, pointless addition to a series that needs no multiplayer whatsoever. It has no place being in this game, I denounce it's existence, I shall play one game to see just how much it ruins the game fo-OH WAIT, it's really good.

That is to say, it's really good but unnecessary nonetheless.

The multiplayer is basically Gears of War engine running 4-player Gears of War style wave survival across a handful of maps against either The Geth, The Reapers or Cerberus. The same classes seen in the single player are transferred over to the online multiplayer (Adept, Soldier, Engineer, Sentinel, Infiltrator and Vanguard) and within each class there are several different skins with different powers. Example, Human Male and Female Sentinels have the same powers, Turian Sentinels are...Turian, and have different abilities.

Turian 4 Lyfe, Brah

By playing matches you accumulate credits which can be spent in the store to purchase Packs of varying price and contents, from basic supplies of consumables (medigel, instant ammo replenishes etc) to new weapons, weapon mods and even new characters. Here we find a slight irritation with the appearance of the now-ubiquitous "pay real money for in-game stuff" trend. By spending "Bioware Points" which cost actual money with the actual Queen on it, you can purchase packs without having to play any matches.

Gotta frag 'em all

Once a character reaches a certain level they can be added to your single player save file as an additional War Asset, and there are 30 different multiplayer characters to level up.

Criticisms

I'm sorry, you lost me at Yeah

There is much that I adore about this game, and much that I just don't. For one, the story appears to be one giant dick-sucking fest for fanboys, instead of a solid and relatable tale. Countless times during the game emotions are ham-fisted into cut scenes in the most trite and gauche way possible. I honestly would regard this as two games; one of reasonably high quality that I would definitely recommend to anyone who has played the first two and got on board with the story enough to care and who wants to see the saga through to it's conclusion....and another of over-the-top emotionally charged bullshit that new comers to the series will find hilarious to behold and frankly bemusing. Prime example, the endless number of self-sacrificing characters with heroic music playing as they hug a bomb, or fight a Rachni swarm single-handed whilst Shepard beats a hasty retreat. That sort of emotive cut scene only works if you care about the character, something that first time players certainly will not as there is basically NO character development for any of the Old Gang from the first two games (except maybe Ashley) and the new team members are a violently 2D man-mountain resembling Brick from Borderlands but with LESS charisma (voiced by Freddie Prinze Jr I hasten to add) and a reincarnation of an old friend who's got their own arc anyway.

Also, Cerberus are now Helghast.

Multiplayer criticisms are limited only to IT HAS NO RIGHT BEING IN THIS GAME and the way in which it s integrated with single player. My usual standard operating procedure with games is simple; finish the single player, learn the game and how you wish to play it, and if the multiplayer looks interesting give it a go. Prime example, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Loved the single player, got addicted to the multiplayer AFTERWARDS. With Mass Effect 3, however, the game encourages you to break the flow of playing the single player game to spend hours playing the multiplayer to increase your Galactic Readiness. Granted, 25 games on the middle difficulty will give you 100% Galactic Readiness, and that should only take roughly 12 hours of multiplayer action, but the principal still very much annoys me. Though I will say, I am very glad it's not just another bland, PVP online multiplayer hack-fest.

The move from Steam to Origin for PC versions of the game irritated me as well, it seems to make no sense to swap clients for the last game in the series. Origin is just a shoddy, orange (bleaugh) impostor to the golden, shining edifice that is Steam.

Conclusion

Overall, I'd recommend this to anyone who enjoyed both the other games. It's a solid shooter with a ridiculously interesting plot that sucks you right in and makes you lose entire days at a time. I would, however, strongly recommend you play the other two games first. Mass Effect 2 was fairly easy to pick up and jump into without worrying about the story (though why you would baffles me) but with 3, it's too much of an integral part of the game's appeal to expect new comers to enjoy without the slightest idea of what a Reaper is, or why Chris Griffin has osteoporosis. 

Longevity has certainly been extended due to the addition of online multiplayer, but I will always play these games regularly as I enjoy the story just as much as Garrus enjoys calibrations.

The Ending

The Internet Community

What the bloody hell was all the fuss about, internet?! Why the desk-flipping amounts of rage at what was, in essence, a perfectly good ending? Just because whatever you do Shepard dies doesn't mean you need to start a charity to petition EA to re-make the ending! And even if they do submit to your demands, how are they going to appease all of you? Are you expected tailor made endings to each and every one of your desires? I mean....they always said it was going to be a trilogy, and Shepard sacrificing himself to save humanity is quite the full stop at the end of the Mass Effect saga (although, Joker, Garrus and EDI did look set to repopulate the galaxy at the end of my game) A good ending doesn't have to be one where the protagonist survives for fucks sake!

Garrus and I share views regarding your complaints

Counter-rage over, now I'll talk about the actual ending. 

After landing on earth I was subjected to some of the most climactic, cluster-fucking combat in the entire series. No one should have to take on 4 Brutes and 4 Banshees at once, not to mention the hoards of smaller enemies. Difficulty curved ramped, which only made for a much more satisfying end to the series. The final push towards to definitely-not-stolen-from-Halo elevator was pretty intense and I was all fired up to jump through and continue the fight on the Citadel.......and then suddenly I was doing my third lap of a slow motion forest full of whispering people, chasing a child with acutely mis-proportioned limbs who resembled Dr Zoidberg "whoop whoop-ing" out of his shell. Because emotion. Here was more of the ham-fisted emotional bollocks I've previously mentioned. I'm sure some people got all emotional themselves when playing this section of the game, but I was a full Renegade BAMF and cared not for some kid with 6 elbows.

Oh my god who cares

Furthermore, slow motion running....ghostly figures whispering doubts....lost in a forest....CAN YOU GET ANY MORE CLICHED?! Turned me right off, that did. Even worse is the fact that you have to NAVIGATE this forest, reaching certain points to watch the child (and later on the child and you) burn in front of your eyes, continuing the originality of the dream sequence (because that's what it turns out to be).

Oh, then you get up and run through the lift, stagger along the inside of the citadel with Anderson and finally face down The Illusive Man. Some things are said, some stuff is done, turns out you were re-built by The Illusive Man with Reaper technology so he could control you through indoctrination.....and then they both end up dead by your hand.

About sums it up

Then comes "totally expected unexpected reveal #3," there is a higher power controlling the Reapers. Some fluff explaining why they are necessary and then you're given the choice to either destroy them, control them or merge all organic and synthetic life together in one big orgy...but that also kills everything and destroys the mass relays. To be honest, I've watched all the endings on youtube and they all seem to kill everybody just with different coloured explosions. Also, Shepard dies in all three endings. So, really, there isn't much difference if you're colour blind.

My Experience

Here are some of the key decisions you face during the series and how I chose to deal with them:

Mass Effect 1

- Fully Renegade

- Earthborn, Ruthless

- Garrus and Wrex both alive

- Sacrificed Kaiden on Vermine

- Romanced no one

- Killed Zhu's Hope colonists

- Killed Rachni Queen

- Captain Kirrahe saved on Vermire

- Council sacrificed

- Anderson made Councillor

Mass Effect 2

- Destroyed Genophage cure on Tucanka

- Killed Samara, recruited Morinth

- Recruited Thane

- Sent Legion to Cerberus

- Preserved Collector base

- Grunt and Tali died during suicide mission

Mass Effect 3

- Preserved Genophage cure, Mordin died

- Sided with Geth, Quarians attacked, Legion died

- Encouraged EDI and Joker to date

- Thane died

- Killed Kai Leng

- Killed The Illusive Man

- Chose 'green' ending, synthesis

(I'll up date this as I remember, there are quite a few)

If I Were A Pirate...

I must begin by stating, with the exception of this disclaimer, the content of this post is directly quoted from a friend of mine, I added the images for lols. We shall call him 'Mr E' (Mystery, geddit?).

So, I've been a pirate pretty much constantly since I was desperate to have my own copy of Hitman: Blood Money, which I had failed to finish at a friend's house back in 2006. After torrenting 4 different copies of the Spanish demo, I finally got the hang of spotting a decent torrent from a virus-filled pile of troll, mounting and burning iso files and cracking the installs. Since then I've probably downloaded thousands of episodes of TV shows, films, albums and games. By far the biggest contributor to those numbers has to be TV. The regular shows I'm addicted to that only air in the US; House, Boardwalk Empire, 30 Rock, Californication etc. as well as entire back-catalogues of TV shows such as Lost, Frasier and the Star Trek series.

Some Films Just Repel Money


The films that I download are nearly always the newest DVD releases, usually US rips, which means I can watch them a full few months before the DVD is released in the UK. On occasion, I'll have a craving for a certain film, or as I've been doing recently with Nicolas Cage, torrent every reputable film an actor/director has done in order to binge. Some people justify their torrenting by saying they only torrent "bad movies" that they wouldn't pay to see in the cinema. What they're really saying is "I want to see this, but I don't want you to see me seeing it. Unless it's ironically."

I used to torrent every game I could, the last successful torrent being the point-click Jurassic Park game late last year, but before that there is a yawning gap all the way back to Dawn of War II in 2009. I do not torrent games anymore.

The same goes for music, I tend to either buy physical albums from the bands I adore because I enjoy having an actual copy, usually special edition copies. Sometimes I might hear a song I don't recognise and torrent the album just to listen. If I like it, I keep it and listen a lot. If I don't, it falls into the near-endless bucket that is my iTunes library where I get no enjoyment from it.

So that was me, Pirate King, and my torrenting activities circa 2006-2011. So what's changed? Well, I've been repeatedly enlightened by the wonderful and truly insightful Jim Sterling. He has, with his recent Jimquisition mini-series on Pirating (hosted on The Escapist, check it out), altered my perspective on pirating. I used to be of the mindset that "if it's free, why not?" However, with my new enlightened outlook on the subject, I am disavowing as much torrenting as I can in favour of the On-Demand Revolution.


Here's my piracy situation at present:

--> I barely torrent music anymore, I've bought more CDs in the last year than I have in the last 5

--> I do NOT torrent games anymore, specifically because of Steam (more on that later)

--> I do still torrent some films, but that will change soon

--> I still do and will continue to torrent those regular US-shown TV shows.


And here's why I've changed:


On-Demand is the hot stuff.

I'm sure most people have seen, via Facebook, a few of their friends start a 1 Month free trial with Netflix recently. I signed myself up as well. Now, whilst Netflix UK is only offering a very limited (mostly Bollywood) supply of movies to stream for only £6 a month, the idea really hit home with me. Yes, it's been around for ages, along with it's chief competitors Amazon On-Demand, Hulu, SkyGo, iTunes etc, but I'd never given it much attention because, frankly, it wanted my money and torrenting didn't.

But £6 a month....for all the reasonably new (as well as lots of classic) films and TV shows you could want to watch, streamed straight to your PC or PS3, XBOX, Wii or even your smartphone. That's far too good to ignore.

Currently, Netflix has a dire selection due to licencing issues, but that is set to improve. The other companies I mentioned offer a similar service, however I have yet to explore any of these alternatives. The important point, the revolutionary point, is the business model. It is, as I understand it, thus: Netflix buys a TV show or film from the studios, and distributes it as many times as demand calls for, without expending our planet's natural resources to press and distribute discs. Each member pays a flat rate, so the more members the more Netflix has to spend on procuring more content. It can only get bigger and better. In my mind, the entire company is effectively some servers, a Purchasing department and a PR department. And it's the bloody future.

The same model has been seen for years, iTunes has done exactly the same for the music industry. Since the iTunes Store became the nearly-endless pit of music that it is today music piracy has plummeted, mine included. Now, whilst I don't use the iTunes store, I am a big fan of it. Selling music, games, apps and even films and TV episodes to anyone, regardless of whether they own an 'i' product.

Steam is the exact same model, but for gaming. A digital store which functions by spending money acquiring games, and then selling them endlessly as demand dictates. It has completely removed my desire to torrent ANY game, especially indie games like The Binding of Isaac. I picked this great game up on Steam for £1.85, barely the price of a pint. Why quibble that amount of money? If you say you can't afford to pay that to a bunch of indie developers making such wonderful products and torrent it instead, then what business do you have owning a PC? Surely the several hundred pounds of PC you're reading this on could be better spent elsewhere. £1.85 is so little money I even felt bad after playing the same for nearly 20 hours; I wanted to buy it again, just to give the developers some more money. So I bought it for a friend instead.


Some of you might be thinking why I, currently unemployed and penniless, would be willing to ignore the free option for the paid. The simple answer is convenience. Steam, iTunes, Netflix, they all provide the content for much less than a high street shop, and they do it instantly. Granted, your internet connection might affect that somewhat, but you can't argue with 25% off the RRP of new game titles such as Skyrim and Modern Warfare 3. Or an entire new album for £7.99. Or an entire month of TV and film for £6.

This is a ridiculous thing for people to be ignoring, and why I feel a tad ashamed that I've continued to torrent when services such as this are so readily available. I strongly suggest you head to Netflix and take advantage of their free month trial, just remember they'll begin to charge you automatically after 30 days (though, you can sign up, then cancel the same day, and still use it for the next 30 days). Similarly, if you're a PC gamer and you don't have Steam....well, I can't really believe you exist so I shan't patronise you. And everyone knows about iTunes. [I would post links, but let's face it, we're the Google Generation, do it yourself]


So it would appear that the industry has ever base covered then. Not entirely. There is still the matter of international On-Demand services. Currently, the BBC, ITV, Channel 4 and Five all have on-demand services, but they're not available outside of the UK because of licencing issues; stupid, backwards licencing issues. (Example: did you ever watch live TV at uni on your laptop without a TV licence? Congratulations on breaking the law, I know I did!) The US has similar on-demand services, Hulu, Amazon and iTunes to name a few. The problem, for me at least, is with the lack of international legality. I can't watch The Big Bang Theory legally in the UK without waiting an arbitrary number of weeks for it to be shown on E4, and some shows like House, just don't get shown in the UK, unless you wait 2-3 years and are watching Five during the mid afternoon because you're unemployed.

It seems to me that there is a gaping hole in the market for a company or companies to bridge the gap, legally. Torrenting has been doing it illegally for years now, with my full support. Because of the vast differences between the TV industry in the US and in the UK there is very little compatibility. Were a company such as Netflix to bridge this gap, possibly by charging their members an extra few pounds a month, they could bounce shows from the UK to the US and vice versa. Surprisingly it truly is a two-way street, something that was made very clear by the latest instalment of the BBC series Sherlock. Many Americans enjoy this show, and I'm sure quite a few had to resort to less than legal means in order to watch it.

My take-home message is this; stop torrenting if you have the means to procure your entertainment in a legal fashion. It's always your consumer responsibility to seek out the best deals, but free is not the best deal because of complex economics and pie charts regarding money flow and something called 'synergising backward overflow.' If you haven't got the means to take advantage of these cheaper-than-crotch-shots services, then sell your PC and feed your family.

If you continue to torrent for whatever reason, I'm not judging you in the slightest, but do try to ween yourself off them. Nobody wants the feds breaking down your door at 3am to seize your all-MLP hard drive and count the number of episodes you've watched. Each one takes a year off your life, so I've heard....


Oh, and yes, we all would:

Star Trek Online

Guess what? Another MMO went Free-To-Play on Steam at the beginning of February. Naturally, I jumped at the chance to squeeze into a Lycra bodysuit, pin on a comm badge and holster my phaser.

MMOs as a concept, baffle me. Something that I touched on in my DC Universe Online review. The idea of buying a game, and then continuing to buy the ability to play it just doesn't make even a modicum of sense to me. Clearly, I'm in the minority, judging by the sheer gargantuan success of MMOs including World Of Warcraft, EVE, Everquest etc. Therefore I shall be putting my prejudices aside for the time being.

Developed by Cryptic Studios (City of Heroes/Villains), using their Cryptic Engine, Star Trek Online is set during the 25th century - a turbulent time in the Alpha Quadrant, some years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. The Federation and Klingon Empire are at war. Threat from the Romulan Star Empire, the Borg Collective, Hirogen hunters and many other smaller enemy factions are ever-present. Not to mention that the shape-shifting Udine (formerly Species 8472) are larking about impersonating high-ranking members of every faction's military, causing the breakdown of all hopes for a diplomatic solution.

How much? Oh I get it free during the game? Lovely.

It is into this world that you are thrown. As a low ranking Star Fleet officer you are given command of a star-ship, as the Fleet needs every available ship on the front lines. You are issued missions from various NPCs across the map, in standard MMO style. Some missions progress the main story line, which has been divided into handy 'episodes' used to help track your progress through the story and even be replayed at leisure. Other NPCs chuck out the standard, monotonous fetch quests etc that all MMOs have for resource collection/experience farming. These, I ignore. There are also PVP queues that can be accessed from any common area, but owing to the structure of the game (to be discussed later) they're barely worth any attention.

Even this doesn't do it justice.

Pretty standard MMO stuff then. The interesting aspects of Star Trek Online, as with all MMOs, comes from character creation and combat.

Character Creation

The first choice to make is career path. Are you a Spock, McKoy, Kirk or Wesley Crusher? The three paths, Tactical (Red), Engineering (Yellow) and Science (Blue) will be fairly familiar to many MMO players. Tactical focuses on combat buffs and aggressive abilities in order to ramp their DPS, Engineering focuses on support powers such as fabrication of turrets and shield generators, and Science officers provide healing and crowd control abilities. I chose Engineer.

Next, you are asked to choose your Race. Human, Trill, Bajoran, Vulcan, there are many to choose from. You are also presented with the opportunity to create your own entire species, from physical attributes to four specific character perks. I chose this option. I saw no reason to not indulge in every part of customisation, even down to the colour of my character's eyes and nails. Because I can. And that level of customisation, of sculpting an avatar into a being you created and you own, is what I love most about RPG games.

Spines? Yes please, two rows.

With my character styled to out-the-arse levels of detail, I was thrown right into the tutorial (narrated by the wonderful Zachery Quinto I might add) which leads you through a ground combat section, teaching you the basics. More on that later. Upon completion of the tutorial, and a few other sections of story progressing and 'go-here/press-this' mission etc. you are commissioned as a Captain, and given your own ship.

Here's the second level of character creation. There are three classes of ships; Cruisers, which are general warships set up to be balance between speed, damage and survivability, Escorts, smaller and faster than Cruisers, with more fire power but weaker shields, and Science Ships, with high shield strength but weaker hulls, focusing on abilities. Each one of these ship classes reflects the character classes, but does not mean all Science Officers only do well in Science Ships, as your own abilities have little effect on space combat. I picked Escort and stuck with it through the ranks, however it is easy to swap from one class to the other when you receive a free ship token from the Admiral upon reaching rank 10, 20, 30 etc.

Here's mine, she'll do 0.5 past light speed.

A word on the levelling system. It's simple enough to grind, easy enough to level without grinding and great for streamlining your class by choosing different upgrades. By assigning low ranking members of your crew to carry out missions on-board or elsewhere in the sector you can generate resources and XP without even playing the game, as they carry out these missions in real time.

From this point onwards everything is down to you and your character. As I've stated, there are story missions, daily missions and the PVP/PVE arenas to fight in. The stars are the limit.

Space Combat

Holy woah.

Do you remember watching any of the Star Trek series or movies and wishing you could be in the captain's chair, barking orders at your bearded First Officer to 'engage evasive manoeuvre Alpha Epsilon 3 on your mark?' Well, Star Trek Online pretty much has that to a tee. Space combat is great. The encounters are all within fully 3D maps, allowing for everything you could think to do with your Star Ship. Cloaking, tractor beams, evasive manoeuvres, torpedo spreads, tachyon beams, boarding parties, they're all incorporated somehow. I would liken it to Star Trek Legacy, because that's what it is, but with a ton of extra abilities and tactics thrown in to expand the opportunities in each battle. Also, it's Archer free!

Least threatening pirate queen ever.

Two examples of how you can engage in space combat. I am currently Level 32, using a Defiant class (the one from Deep Space 9, also Worf has one. Photo below) which is an Escort rammed to the bulkheads with narrow firing arc/high damage cannons and not a lot else. Generally my tactic is to come at an enemy, usually a Romulan D'Deridex at present, with all power to weapons, forward shields at max and all offensive abilities activated (increased rate of fire, damage, area of effect). When in range a tacyhon beam depletes their facing shields, my cannons hammer down the rest and expose the hull. At this point I activate my tractor beam, to hold them in place and deal light damage over time, as I come about and fire a full spread from my aft torpedo launcher, striking massive damage against their hull.

This is Worf. Worf is displeased.

One of my fellow captains chooses a different, but equally effective approach. He is currently in command of an Excalibur class Cruiser, fore and aft torpedoes, several phaser banks, but not as nimble. Because of the firing arc of phaser banks, there is one specific way to broadside an enemy where both fore and aft banks overlap and can deal near continual punishment to shields. Once his enemy's shields are down, a quick turn and a few torpedo spreads is all it takes to finish them off.

U.S.S. Akkan. Does not play well with others.

Both of these tactics have Star Trek written all over them. I can recall scenes in films and episodes where nearly all of those manoeuvres have been done, which is what makes them all the more satisfying to do in game!

Space combat demonstrates that the three ship classes clearly occupy the same character types as the three Character classes. Escorts are focused damage dealers, Cruisers can take the punishment and manage threat control whilst Science Ships heal allies, cripple enemy movements and bolster allied weapons.

I love this more than Ensign Crusher loves stupid jumpers.

Your space combat abilities come from a wonderful system of Bridge Officers (or BOFFs). Each ship has slots for Tactical, Engineering and Science BOFFs, with each class of ship favouring one over the other two in numbers. My Escort has two tactical, one engineering and one science. These BOFFs are recruited or bought during the game and serve as your bridge crew during space combat. They are also able to accompany you on ground missions by joining your away team. As you progress in rank you increase the number of BOFFs you can have at any time. When completing missions, destroying enemies and achieving certain objectives you earn XP for your own progression but also BOFFXP, which is used to increase the abilities of your BOFFs. Once you have spent a sufficient amount of BOFFXP on an officer, you can choose to spend resources to promote them. When promoted, a BOFF gains access to the next tier of abilities, both space and ground. This added an element of loyalty and a real essence of being a proper Star Fleet crew.

Ground Combat

Ever played Star Wars: Knights of The Old Republic 2? Well, ground combat is like that on a quality-free diet. It has limited FPS appeal, awkward ability cooldowns, over-zealous AI that want's you and ONLY YOU dead RIGHT NOW, despite being out numbered 5-to-1 and having all four of my away team shooting the crap out of it. For me, it's mostly a case of "Fine, STO, I will do your 9000th corridor rail shooter-esque away team mission, so long as you let me back into space in the next ten minutes."

Flee! Flee from my poorly-executed combat mechanics!....Or don't.

Sometimes the non-combat ground sections are just awful. For example, I went back in time to stop the Devidians from stealing a meteor (I think...I blew it up, close enough). I met Bones, and he was a dick. The guy made me do the most ridiculous fetch quest. First, I had to find a Barmaid, then she told me to go talk to Bones again. So back I went, across the map, to find him. He then told me I needed to make a Nerve Tonic to calm the Barmaid's nerves so she would tell me what transpired before my away team and I arrived. Back I go to the Barmaid to give her a Nerve Tonic, which I didn't have, and she directs me to the Bar. Here, I am presented with five tiers of choices regarding the composition of said Tonic. Not a clue. Not a bloody clue. So I made one, gave it to the Barmaid, bitch doesn't like honey. Well fuck. Space bees make shit honey, apparently. So back I trotted to Bones who proceeded to tell me everything the Barmaid liked about drinks. And I mean everything. I had to start taking notes to get it all down. Eventually I sort of had an idea of what she would want, so I went back to the Bar to make the drink. Needless to say, she didn't like it. I had to repeat the note-taking exercise four times. I wanted to kill Bones.

Even the Ghost-Busting missions didn't make up for it.

PVP Combat

Don't even bother. The Federation-on-Federation training exercises are barely running, due to lack of interest, and when they are there's always some uber-rank with a plasma mini-gun wasting everyone else. The space combat stuff is basically the same, no one understands how to work as a team so no one survives very long.

The fact that you can't even unlock a Klingon character slot until level 25 means there is about an 80:20 split in players in favour of Federation, which means PVP never, ever gets going.

On the rare occasion that PVE has worked, it's been pretty cool. We hunted a Romulan fleet, lead by a ship similar in design to the Scimitar seen in Star Trek: Nemesis. It didn't resemble it for long:

Kaboom.

Bad Stuff

The game features an in-game shop, the C-Store, where actual money with the Queen on it and everything can be exchanged for C-Credits. These are used to purchase new ships, equipment and even pets to follow you around, something that I absolutely cannot understand people spending money on. This in-game currency worth real money irritates me. It's clearly another way to continue to make money from a product, especially since it's now FTP, and I understand that. However, I'm not paying £15 to find out what the hell is inside every single one of the 56 Cardassian Lockboxes I have sitting in my inventory. It might be driving me insane.

A dog is for life. But apparently not for Sulu.

During peak hours the game has started to become a tad sticky but not unplayable. This is probably due to server strain, and for the first time a few days ago I was asked to wait in a queue before there was room for me to play. It took a full nine days of FTP status for that to happen, about 9 times as long as it took DCUO, thank god. Minor issues really, the servers will calm down after a few weeks.

Good Stuff

There are some great little things that I enjoy about this game. It patches a little bit every loading screen, something which all MMOs may do, but DC Universe Online certainly did not. That bastard made me wait for nearly 20 minutes every time I wanted to play it. However, the game does take forever to load certain maps, most probably due to heavy usage.

Some time and effort has clearly gone into making direct and indirect connections to the various iterations of Star Trek. Admiral Janeway, Ambassador Picard, Spock, Kirk, Sisco they're all in the game somewhere, mostly just by name. I get warm and fuzzy feelings when someone references an episode that I remember. Hell, you can even replicate Feline Supplement 74, the cat food Data gives to Spot. I do love attention to detail like that.

Overall

Yep, nice space combat, ground combat that I can deal with til it goes away coupled with rewarding progression and a highly detailed universe; all good things. Not much to say visually, it's alright on the ground but nothing special, much better in space however. It's an MMO, so longevity is usually a case of money but seeing as it's FTP I don't really see an end to my enjoyment. I'll take breaks, but I feel certain I'll come back to this again in the future.

Go get it, it's free for Kirk's sake!

A Final Point

Y'know Star Wars? The most popular franchise in the history of ever? Well, I'm nearly bored of it. There are so many games based on, admittedly, an excellent universe, that there's very little new ground left to cover. Unless you start making games based upon the colossal amount of fan fictions and other "novellas" based on the lives of the characters, characters children, children's children, pets, accountants etc. and I really don't want another Star Wars Christmas Special fiasco to be frank. Which is why this game appeals to me so much. It's a relatively new universe for me. Yes, I've seen large chunks of TNG and I'm currently re-watching all of Voyager, but I'm in no way saturated with Picardicles, not by a long shot. It's this freshness coupled with highly enjoyable space combat and rewarding gameplay that has stolen over 50 hours from me in the last 15 days. Thoroughly recommend to all MMO fans as well as anyone who's always wanted to play an MMO but morally objects to paying more than once for a game. Also, Star Trek fans of all sorts.