The Greater Evil, Overlord

In a long standing tradition of me playing Third Person Strategy Action RPGs, it's time to turn a very Evil Eye towards the Overlord Series. With the buzz the sequel was getting. I picked up the first game out of a "why the hell did I never get to play this?" reason. Afterwards, I bought Overlord 2 without thinking twice about it. Written by Rihanna Pratchett, the game has sterling pedigree at first glance. Even though she's obviously a different writer from her world famous father: Terry Pratchett and working in a different medium, my expectations were quite high.

The synopsis to Overlord 1 could be: the story about a young and ambitious Sauron in Albion, commanding an army of mischievous demonic imps. Fixing the world's chaotic evils with his own lawful evil. The game has a good and evil route. The former picturing you as an iron-fisted monarch, the latter portraying you as a ruthless tyrant with a appreciation for black lace and pale flesh. Overlord 2 casts the player as Hades, God of the Underworld. Here to exact revenge on "the Empire" which has usurped your father (Sauron) from his rightful dark throne. You set out to reunite the minion army and claim your rightful place in the evil hierarchy and while you're at it claim Artemis, Aphrodite and Persephone as your mistresses.

The Overlord games are structured a bit like a Zelda game. You explore maps and dungeons sprinkled with enemies and puzzles. In almost all cases your minions with their unique abilities are key in overcoming these obstacles. The level design is quite well done, especially in the first game, where every area literally comes full circle. Design reminiscent of games like Pikmin, Metroid and Zelda, but more directed and not at all dependant on backtracking. Overlord did come as somewhat of a surprise. Coming close to being quite like a Nintendo game, you'd half expect it to become an instant classic. But maybe, like many other games, only a classic in few minds.

There's one flaw that's not very hard to overcome, but it's still there. Harrowing to think what this game might have been, had it been made as a PC game first and foremost. Unfortunately that's not where the market is. Overlord is a console game and it shows. A blessing because it has filled the coffers of Triumph studios and codemasters, opening the door for more Overlord games. A curse because control becomes the game's biggest flaw. The standard PC control scheme in both Overlord 1 and 2 drove me to use my PC gamepad (a Saitek P880) in favor of the mouse and keyboard. Because it simply worked a whole lot better. In fact, the controls work fine. They're functional most of the time. However, it is still baffling to see the game twist and squirm to fit onto a console controller. Evidence of this is that there are functions in which you have to press and hold a button, and then press another button. And that's just to select one type of minion. Which generally leads to the "select all, attack all" reflex, abandoning all strategy. Mostly out of necessity because the chaotic nature of combat generally calls for quick action. In order to fit those controls onto a mouse and keyboard, the scheme twists and squirms some more. It is now twice removed from the ideal mouse and keyboard controls.

Allow me to elaborate even further. From a design standpoint. Overlord must have had the looks of a hardcore PC title reminiscent of Sacrifice. That is to say, if your reflex for troop management is "point the mouse and click". Which in short works like this: select your unit group, like your brown minions. Use a mouse pointer on a target, like an enemy. The mouse cursor changes to an attack pointer. Click the mouse to engage, or hold the mouse button to assign more minions to the target in Overlords case. Clicking the scenery would move the minions about. Instead the game controls a bit more like you would when playing a Necromancer Minion Master in Guild Wars, send direct orders to your minions to attack a specific target. Do note that the Wii title Overlord: Dark Legend, does exactly that. And is claimed to have the superior control scheme.

Quote from Scott Sharkey, 1UP:
"The Wii Remote is just plain perfect for directing your horde of minions around the screen. The mouse or analog stick did the job well enough in other versions, but after experiencing the ease of simply pointing where you want the evil little buggers to go break things, it's actually going to be hard to go back to less precise methods. Hell, my never-played-a-videogame-in-her-life girlfriend had no trouble picking the thing up and just going with it, which is something that just couldn't have happened with any other installment of the series. It really is remarkably intuitive, given how complicated keeping track of both your Overlord and a swarm of gremlins can become." We'll have to forgive Overlord 1 for being a pure console game. Because that's where it had to prove itself. Indeed the game is very easily forgiven since puzzles and pace of the general gameplay feels simpler and more manageable. I can't remember being frustrated with it.

But Overlord 2 was developed simultaneously with Overlord Dark Legend. So the point and click (P&C) controls were no secret. Yet, a similar control scheme was left out of the PC version of Overlord 2. The main reason P&C controls were a no-go, next to higher development costs, was that it would break the difficulty of a few control based puzzles. Puzzles that are so frustrating because of the controls that I outright quit the game a couple of times. Loudly cursing with incomprehension why Triumph would abandon the simple (consoles, remember?) elegance of the first game. I'm pretty sure the "green minion spider elevator maze" will go down in history as one of the biggest game design faux-pas. The concept of the puzzle is that the player must navigate a maze on the wall using the sweep command on the green minions. Controlling the group as one entity with the right analog stick. This whole time, the camera is behind the Overlord and pointing towards the group of minions. Within this field of view the group is controlled. If one minion, or several, is stuck behind an obstacle, it will stop moving. With it the camera, as it can't move ahead with the group. This would be alright if it weren't for the fact that this is a timed puzzle. Get stuck for a second and you loose a great portion of your experience rich green minions. They simply fall of the wall and die, or get squashed between the elevator and die. Start over. What makes the puzzle so unnerving is not the fact that it's pretty obnoxious to begin with, it's in the controls by which you have to solve it. The sweep command is pretty wooly as it is. In theory it's a "charge there" command. Like moving by suggestion, it's pretty imprecise. Now imagine just pointing and clicking your way through the maze. It'd be like setting way points in an RTS game: pixel perfect. It would have made this "after boss" mechanic-tutorial (the hard part was supposed to be done with!) a breeze in stead of a wrist cutting. Another dubious decision was the ship chase. Cool in concept, but rather poorly executed. Another still was a rather lengthy stealth level using possessed Green Minions. Some trail and error sections could have been a little less frustrating. This fallback to "twitch gameplay" in stead of sticking to "logic puzzles" may be a sign of Triumph running out of inspiration and then willingly overstepping the line between challenging and frustrating in these few instances. Overlord 2 is a more complex game than its predecessor, with more gameplay elements, a more "advanced" camera and more elaborate control over the Overlord. Unfortunately, and though slightly, to its detriment.

However, that's about all the bad there is to say about the Overlord games so far. So it's mostly all good. Managing your armour, weapons, spells, minions and dark tower are fun RPG additions I would like to see in a Zelda game someday. It's also great to hear all the different lines of banter and dialog in the game as well. Audio in Overlord is well done all-round. The score from the first game was quite good but becomes fantastic in the sequel. Paired with an improved game engine and more detailled art assets, the second game is an impressive showpiece. So far it one of the best games, or should i say franchise, the Netherlands has ever produced. Not that there's a lot of games coming from there anyway, but it's another glimmer of hope that these regions can produce games that actually matter. Now I'd love to see a hardcore Overlord PC game. Preferably with a strong multiplayer component, and an open endgame scenario. With P&C controls. It'd fill the void Sacrifice left behind and Brütal legend will probably fail to fill, currently not even coming to PC. But one may hope.

So Japanese! featuring Final Fantasy V

The Dragon Quest V remake had removed a stigma for me. It had made me see the appeal of Japanese RPGs. And so my eyes turned to that other Japanese Juggernaut: Final Fantasy. I never played the old classics from the NES and SNES era, but the PlayStation Games (FF VII and up) turned me off to the series. Whenever I hear an otaku bemoan the loss of Aeris I look the other way and pretend it doesn't exist. It doesn't stop there though. Metro-sexual underage protagonists? Melodrama and teen angst? Huge swords, gunblades, keyblades, beyblades, all wielded by children on a quest to save the world? I'll stick with Dungeons And Dragons, thank you very much. Let me make my own characters and choices. But then I heard the original Final Fantasy was actually based on Dungeons And Dragons. Aw shucks! Japan often adopts a concept and evolves it in it's own unique way. That, to my mind, is a positive thing. So I picked up the Final Fantasy V remake, at an outrageous price I might add, the original dates back to 1992, for Gameboy Advance and had a go at it.

The game is none to shy about its system. And in fact that's about all there is to it. It's atypical to JRPGs in that sense. There's almost no story to speak of. Of course there is one, but it's mainly there to nudge you along the areas, open up new classes and progress you towards the ending (though I'm not actually sure there is one). Even the Dialogues have been kept to a minimum even though the script knows a few funny lines. It's almost as if the game isn't taking itself very serious. This game is all about its class based combat system. Kind of a big deal. In short: There's a huge variety of classes. You gain job levels through combat. Job levels earn you job skills. You can change classes at any time and you can equip one (two in one case) learned job skill at any time. You get four Characters to play with. Mix and match as you please. Reminiscent to D&D and Guild Wars' ability to dual class, this system introduces a level of strategy and depth that is lacking in games like Dragon Quest V. It also gives the player a lot more incentive to grind away as new job skills are never far off. The game will throw a boss at you from time to time, and I always have a lot of fun figuring out what combinations of skills and classes will work against it. The downside to all this is the grind I mentioned before takes some time. With different motivations it's different from Dragon Quest's grind though; progressing your characters and gaining a strategic advantage in stead of progressing a story. But overall I think that in the current day and age these type of games would do well to speed up the leveling process.

In all though, FFV replaced DQV as my handheld game of the moment. A moment that's been lasting for a couple of months now. In between, I regularly bemoan the loss of Galuf on various message boards. In fact. I'm typing up a touching poem right now.

From the moment I met you there,
Oh Galuf, sage old man, yet proud and free,
alone and forgetting 'why' you were,
I spend so long for you to get XP,
hammered you into something fierce I do decree,
despite old age yet still you died,
and were replaced with Krile,
with a sprite so top heavy I could barely cope,
why a woman! a blonde cliche and why so dope,
now here I am, on message boards,
where all I do is type and mope.

So Japanese! featuring Dragon Quest V

While the world gets shuffled like a worn pack of cards I am trying to keep track of the card I picked. A fixation that has kept me busy for quite a while.

But in between chaos and pandemonium I have been playing quite a bit of games.
So let's start with the beginning. Otherwise we risk upsetting the delicate balance between time and space. I had been playing a fair amount of western RPGs lately, and I have been for a great part of my life. All the while pretty much ignoring the existence of Eastern RPGs. Which is odd, since that must make it the only eastern thing I have not had the joy to experience.
No more.

I knew Dragon Quest has been kind of a big deal. So that's what I got. "Dragon Quest V: Hand Of The Heavenly Bride" for DS to be precise. Few words could describe what happiness was in store for me. So there's finally a chance this could be a short blogpost.

It's a charming game. Objectives are laid out as if they were lighthouses on a clear summernight. There's humour that strikes me as being "So Japanese!". DQ5, however, does have its emotional moments. Soppy as it sounds, the game is actually quite humble (but do keep in mind the DS is humble technology as well) about this. It misses all the pretentious melodrama that is so typically associated with Japanese RPGs, wich makes it all the more absorbing.

My biggest gripe though is perhapse not with DQ, but with Eastern RPGs in general. And that is that the game is padded with grinding. And without a combat system that isn't engaging or a class system that supports it, the experience can get old rather fast. I understand that later DQ games have mended this ailment. And to be fair, there are games with more grinding. Furthermore, DQ mixes up the grind with the ability to go out and try to pursuade monsters to join your side. After which they become party members. Yet, while bringing more complexity, it Unfortinatly creates more grinding and more tedious inventory management.
And there really isn't that much incentive to grind exept to get your character level up. Which brings about another questionable gameplay mechanic. As you level up, so do the enemies. Meaning the game's relative difficulty remains about the same from start to finish. Each area having you playing catch-up on character levels. Thus encouraging the grind rather then make you think about how to get trough an area by combining skills, spells or party members. But that's just the way these games are made.

For a game that was originally released in 1992, DQ5 remade for DS holds up. I don't know if I'd spend the time to play it in my spare time, maybe in small chunks, but it's been a great companion on the daily commute.

Consider Battlefield Heroes

I recently got my beta code for Battlefield Heroes, DICE's free to play cartoon shooter. Being intrigued by this game from the get-go, I was finally able to take it for a spin. On first looks, DICE succeeds in creating a whimsical "casual" third person shooting game. But looks can be deceiving.

First of all, this is a beta I'm talking about so the game is still a work in progress. However. There's already a store in place for you to go spend real money on battlefield bucks, called Battlefunds. These are used to buy in-game items, such as fancy uniforms. I knew character customization would be on a to-buy basis, but it was sobering to see that just about everything in the virtual wardrobe is on sale. Of course there's some freebies in there which you can buy with valor points. These are the points you get from just playing the game. Logic would tell you that enough accumulated valor points (which boil down to "time played") would beget you some better customization options, or at least some form of visible markings of veterancy. But no dice. Because of this I think the game is lacking a basic form of feedback, namely that of character growth. The one constant is your hero and his Hero Points, In MMO-speak, this would be your character's level and skill bar. But there's no way of reading either.

To add insult to injury, the items you get in the game disappear after a week or a month, depending on how much you are willing to spend. The problem here is that DICE can slack off in making new items, since you'll never accumulate a lot of them anyway. Adding a time limit also adds pressure of "having to play the game, or I have paid for nothing". I can understand why you would apply this to weapons and power-ups because they give you an advantage in the game. Even if those weapons are considered balanced. If you play better with them, there's still an advantage. But I don't quite get why you would have clothing an accessories disappear. This goes against some MMO conventions, where you "win" gear, and once you do it's yours forever, or until you sell or replace it. People might find it disheartening if they have to rebuy their outfits time and time again. But the special gear is more of a hook rather than a gameplay defining element.

I'm unsure as to how well it will score with the casual audience. Maybe the concept of a shooter isn't that well suited to casual play either - even if it is from a third person perspective. We can make the case that casual players play games for killing time and having some easy fun. It's hard to match this with a shooter, which operates in a competitive, hostile environment. Sure, the game is easy enough to dive into, but from there you need to really work your way up the roster. The game is said to find matches according to your skill level so maybe this won't be as much of an issue as I think. Still, the people I played against were often on voice comms, really organized and put up a very good fight.

This game feels like a reskinned, hardcore battlefield game. Where all the character models are replaced by cartoons and some of the sound effects were swapped with the ones you hear on a Sunday morning. To some ears this might sound like a bad idea. But for me, this game looks and feels better then the older battlefield games. Of course, "realistic" shooters are a dime a dozen nowadays, which makes Heroes stand out as being quite unique. The closest comparison I could make are to Batallion Wars and Team Fortress 2. With Heroes sitting somewhere in between those extreme ends of the spectrum. It's not an imitation of either, mind. To add some contrast, Batallion Wars is a third person shooter RTS and Team Fortress 2 is Quake to Battlefield heroes' Battlefield.

So will it all work? I think so. But not with the casual audience, because I don't think this is a casual game. If this is marketed right, and (content) updates keep coming, DICE may be sitting on a goldmine. But they will get competition from other shooters. Many are aiming for the same audience. It's easy to see how someone might become invested in this game however. Spending real money on digital items. I bet some people on Ventrillo will agree with me, given the fact they have already spent some of their earnings on peg legs and sailor uniforms.

commutement

One of the unique properties of being a working man is the daily commute to work. I go by bike, train and foot. And nothing is more enjoyable then playing railway roulette.
The one bullet in the gun is the pretty girl that sits in front front of you and smiles back. Or that casts the one, not so innocent glimpse when she is about to turn her head.

On my ride home today I sat down in a two by two compartment. While unshouldering my rainstained black leather bag, I turn and look up into the pink face of prudence. She must have been about 72 years old, scrubbed and wrinkled. Very dignified. I could imagine she has her milk and coffee in see-through porcelain cups with her pinky doing the Heil Hitler salute.
The word that surfaced out of the murky depths of my brain was "chicken", brooding right in front of me. And for someone reading a recreational magazine, she didn't seem much entertained.
Her mouth so downturned there isn't enough skin below the chin for a smile. It looked very much like she had a ventriloquist dummy mouth installed.
How did this come to be, I asked myself as I have time and time again. It must be all the prudence, I replied.
The gun clicked.

On the next stop, I had another shot. The mass of bodies moved off and on the train. Fresh air gushed into the cabine. And with it unanswered questions.
Like "Why is there a monkey next to me, shoving bananas into it's mouth?" I could see it out of the corners of my left eye. I saw a shape swinging a big hand in the air, the trajectory ending at an open maw, which closed on something sloppy and oker. The hand returned to it's lap, while the maw was winking it's delicious content at me.
After I unfroze, I risked a quick glance at this percieved reality. It wasn't quite as imaginative as I had imagined, but still rather shocking.
A button-nosed girl was fisting one waffle after another into her chubby face. Unapologetically and openly mauling the dough in her mouth as if she was mixing concrete in it. The guy opposite to her could propably smell the taste of the sweet salive-waffle paste.
The gun clicked.

We can't win them all. But it just goes to show that life's little frustrations can add much to one's creativity.