The blog is moving!!

I decided that I’d have a lot more control over the blog (and its content) if I moved to my personal website so here it is:

http://SeeingRedRant.com

I’m still working on configuring everything – I think RSS isn’t active yet but this will be fixed soon if it isn’t. See you there!

Demo: Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

These days, a publisher deserves a small pat on the back for releasing a demo due to how rare it has become. Kingdom of Amalur did take me by surprise: I had never heard of the game and it just appeared on several sites and forums less than a day ago. Always eager to try a new RPG, I decided to check it out and downloaded it on Steam. Here’s what I discovered …

I really had zero expectations and wasn’t even sure what kind of RPG it was. A quick check in the controls menu showed no movement keys so I assumed it would be a Diablo-type of game. However, I was wrong. They simply don’t let you reassign the movement keys which is a first big mistake since several countries in the world still use AZERTY keyboards, Belgium included. A very bad start then … . When the game actually started, I quickly realise what this game really was: a mix of half a dozen RPGs. The combat takes many elements from The Witcher 2 and other action RPGs, the graphics look to be an improved World of Warcraft style and the dialogue system is a little bit of Bioware. These are all classics, of course, so in a way this is not bad but sadly enough the game makes many mistakes.

The FOV (field of view) is set quite low giving me a headache in no time – there’s no way to change this that I know of. The game is also very buggy – especially using the bow. Half the time, my character put away her bow instead of shooting it – or she’d refuse to shoot or would lose the target. For a game boasting extremely responsive controls (in the trailer after you try to leave the game), this is pretty bad. You can also only equip two weapons it seems – maybe using the quick bar you can juggle more, but why won’t the game let you cycle through more weapons? The design of the game means different weapons have different uses so besides a ranged weapon, you may need a fire staff to torch through webs, daggers to perform sneak skills and a sword to do some good serious damage. It makes no sense to just let you cycle through a single melee weapon and a single ranged one.

When everything works, the demo isn’t too bad – but it’s never that good. It pales next to The Witcher 2’s tight combat and just feels a bit too generic for its own good. By borrowing from many games, it seems to have an identity crisis – the demo doesn’t seem to show me anything that makes it a game of its own. Oh, and did I mention that the user interface is atrocious? Obviously designed for gamepads, a simple matter of equipping an item takes several clicks too long – not unlike Skyrim’s terrible interface.

You might want to check it out anyway, though, if you enjoy the games it tries to mimic but don’t expect anything ground-breaking.

The Sound of Game Music (part 2)

As promised, here is part 2 of my favourite game music. Enjoy!

Star Control 2 (Yehat Theme)

Ascendancy (Intro)

Portal (Still Alive)

Battle Isle 2 (Return to Bulumdum)

Broken Sword (Hotel Ubu)

Red Alert (Hell March)

Secret of Monkey Island (Theme)

Duke Nukem (Megadeth version of Theme)

Earthworm Jim (What The Heck !?)

A little bit of info:

Star Control 2 was infamously delayed because of its music, causing the game to go from just a single floppy to four. Yes, just for the music – and do you think it was worth it? You bet! Without the music, this game is brilliant, but with the music, it’s just … godlike. I only added one of the songs here, but check out Youtube for the rest. The game used something similar to MOD music. MODs (Module file music) were an advanced kind of music, similar to MIDI but where MIDI relied on the software and hardware to determine how it sounds (different sound cards had different sound banks), MODs always sounded identical and supported samples. Too bad so few PC games made use of them … .

Ascendancy was one of my first mail order games and after playing the demo, I was sold. The music made a huge difference in creating the right kind of atmosphere – in fact, this is a prime example of how modern space games are really missing the mark. I honestly can’t think of any modern space strategy game where the music moved me.

Portal’s Still Alive was a welcome surprise after a disappointing game. Yes, I’m one of the few people who don’t rate Portal too highly as a game. Too easy, too short – brilliant back story though. In fact, that goes for Portal 2 as well and even more so (even greater back story and even easier).

Battle Isle 2 (a game very similar to Advance Wars) had some surprisingly great music – the song above is one of the best from the game (although it has to be said this Youtube version sounds off – as I said above, MIDIs have the disadvantage of not always sounding the same depending on the settings and hardware).

Broken Sword was a game that completely knocked over by its music alone. The demo had already convinced me to buy it even though it would barely run on my 486 but that didn’t stop me. The main theme was hauntingly beautiful but then I entered Hotel Ubu and … wow. I love piano music and these two songs are so filled with emotion that, even now, more than 15 years later, I still drift away when I hear them.

I loved Red Alert’s Hell March from the first time I heard it. At the time, not many games dared to have such a violent soundtrack (Quake being another exception) but this song fit the game so well that it was hard to imagine the game with a song that wasn’t so powerful!

You can’t have a list of favourite game music and not have Secret of Monkey Island in it. Impossible! This theme is legendary and still gives me shivers when I replay any of the series’ games (except maybe the last).

Duke Nukem‘s theme is so good, it’s the only theme that earned a fixed place on my MP3 player! The Megadeth version is just amazing.

Earthworm Jim had some brilliant music as well but if one sound stood out, it was this one. The PC version easily had the best one of all platforms (it was CD audio after all) and the brilliant intro leading to a mellow muzak song filled with screams is just too clever to not include here.

And that’s that … I may create a Part 3 if I remember enough songs to make one but I hope you enjoyed the music!

Should small scale piracy lead to lawsuits?

This is a very controversial point – and one that is hard to make in a few lines, so bear with me.

We have a generation of parents now who just missed the technological boat, so to speak. They grew up just before computers (and the Internet) became popular and many can only use it for the bare minimum. Now, computers are everywhere: every kid needs it for school and most kids know way more about then than their parents ever will. And therein lies the problem: Kids are kids and you may be as good a parent as you want, but you know your 14 year old son will end up looking at porn just like you know he’ll find a way to download music and games even when you tell him not to.

Now, the dilemma is caused by combining the two: kids will do things that are illegal AND theyusually know more about computers than their parents. Even the parents that are smart enough to put a parent lock in place, would be surprised how quick their kid can circumvent it. So this poses a problem: as a parent, you’re responsible for what your kid does, yet the current reality makes it incredibly easy for your kid to do stuff online that could cost you millions as a parent!

And that’s where I object. This is simply not right – the current legal system basically forces parents to know more about computers than their kids (which is virtually impossible for most parents, ask them). A few years back, a mother was fined an enormous amount for downloading a pinball game – except her son had done this, not her. She could barely use a computer let alone prevent her son from downloading content illegally. What was she supposed to do? Take his computer away? I’m sure she did after it was too late – but it’s hardly a realistic thing to do. Kids need computers for school – a lot of school content is online so you can’t even unplug the Internet.

Some people say “just watch over what your kids are doing” and I call them naive fools. When I was 13, I was allowed 2 hours of computer every day (back in 1993) and my father had added a password so I couldn’t cheat. It took me less than a week to figure out the password and sneak on while I was home alone. You can try as hard as you want, but when kids get the chance, they’ll do it. That’s what teenagers are – they do stupid stuff. The thing is, in the past most of the stupid stuff involved petty crime – which the police would usually ignore unless it got too out of hand (like vandalism) – but considering the large scale of downloading music, games, movies, etc. AND considering how hard it is for a parent to prevent your kids from doing it, it strikes me that the current laws are far too harsh.

Of course, you may say it’s a non-problem because only a tiny tiny percentage of people who pirate get caught which is partially true. It’s not like a load of people have to pay these outrageous fines, but that’s just it – because so few people get caught, most people shrug it off and it essentially becomes a game of chance. It’s like lining up 10.000 people and shooting one at random!

If they increased the rate of prosecution and got the fines to be a lot lower to a more realistic level, I’d be more fine with it all but of course, fines wouldn’t go to the greedy corporations so, gee, I wonder why this never happened …

Devil’s Advocate: Depth vs Trial & Error

When it comes to classic cRPGs, there’s one thing that is usually true: they give you a lot of freedom. Along with that usually comes depth: the liberty to play the game the way you want to which is what makes them so popular. Do you want a single wizard or two? Two fighters or just one and a ranger? Will you let the ranger double as a healer? Or maybe as a rogue? There isn’t one single way of playing them and there’s a lot of different guides and character builds to be found online. And yet, many gamers forget that this has its downsides …

You see, many of the cRPGs are incredibly hard for newcomers. They have to learn the real meanings behind the stats (how does ‘perception’ affect how I actually play) and also learn which stats prove to be more vital than others. The manual may very well claim that dexterity lets you avoid damage but to what extend? Is a dexterity of 14 a lot worse than 18? Are there ways to compensate? Or does a good suit of armour provide an alternative? The advice will often be: experiment, replay and mess around. But this is what this Devil’s Advocateis about: too many of the classics are very hard to get into due to non-transparent game mechanics.

Evidence of this, are the many guides that can be found on the Internet which help you create “ideal” builds. You may say “but that doesn’t mean you need an ideal build to complete the game!” and indeed, that’s true. But the very knowledge that is needed to create these builds, is also the knowledge that is needed to complete the game without ideal builds if you get what I mean. A lot of cRPGs are nail hard even on the easiest of settings and to compensate for a poorly made team, you need to know the game through and through – meaning a newcomer is screwed both ways. As a result, I always suggest people consult a character guide, letting them at least have an ideal party to play with so they can get to grips with the game without getting stomped into the ground every 10 minutes.

On top of this, a lot of games have stats that look better on paper than in practice. Fallout 1 & 2 have almost identical game mechanics yet in Fallout 2, some stats are more vital than in Fallout 1 because of the type of enemies you’ll encounter, the type of quests you’ll need to do and the kind of gear that can be collected. How can you know this before having played both games? You can’t. Not in a million years. That’s where trial & error comes in: you learn and adjust to what you need the most in a game. It’s not fair by a long shot and while the many choices given add a lot of depth, it also adds many opportunities to screw up massively or at the very least, have a less-than-ideal character in games that are already notorious for being tough.

Don’t get me wrong, without all those options, they wouldn’t be as great as they are, but it would certainly have been a lot more fun if the developers had added an option to reallocate skills and attribute points inside the game so we could undo mistakes or adjust without having to restart completely or dig out a savegame editor (I usually use the latter when possible).

Bottomline: if you want to enjoy classic cRPGs and have never played them before, expect to sweat a lot – either over guides & manuals, or in the game.

The Sound of Game Music (part 1)

You know, if there’s two things that too many games do poorly, it’s music & sounds. They’re often added at the last minute before completing the game and in most cases, stock sounds are used and the music is too forgettable for its own good. Ironic how soundtracks bundled with collector’s edition are often the most generic of all! Myself, I enjoy atypical music that is memorable and stands out – music that tugs at your heart strings or awakens some old memories, takes you to mystic lands and forgotten worlds. Instead, we usually get cheap instrumental music for fantasy games or lame techno for action or strategy games.

Still, there are some beautiful exceptions to that rule and as such, I would like to share with you my favourite songs – some very well known and others very obscure. Sit back and enjoy …

Little Big Adventure (Main Theme)

Ultima IX/Ultima Online (Moonglow Theme)

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind (Main Theme)

Fallout 2 (“Arroyo”)

Divine Divinity (“Roads Shaded by Green Eaves”)

Tomb Raider (Menu Theme)

Full Throttle (“Legacy”)

Quarantine (“Lie Down Forever”)

(Part 2 coming soon!)