Sunday, September 23, 2012

In case you didn't know...

I'm on Facebook! That's right, I have another output to...output (*cringe*) my work. I'll be using that page a little more regularly than this here blog, so go over and give it a "Like".

In the meantime, here's a couple of games which I'll be looking at very soon among others:


  • Pokémon Diamond (GBC) - It's on the Game Boy Colour. Yes, I know it's not "real" but it's a game nevertheless.
  • Toy Story 2 (N64) - I actually can't wait!
  • Slender (PC) - If I can get it to work, I'll make this a video response.
  • Banjo Kazooie: Nuts and Bolts (360) - Sounds like fun.
Here's a picture. Bye now. =)


Monday, September 3, 2012

Review: Pimp My Ride (2006)




I'm pretty sure I can make out the conversation Xzibit had with Activision when the idea for a game based on the popular MTV show Pimp My Ride was first conceived. It probably went along the lines of this:

Activision: So Xzibit, we hear you have a new idea for a game. Show us your pitch.

Xzibit: Yo dawg, so I heard you like games. So we want to put a game in a game so you can play while you play! 
Activision: [in tears at the genius that is Xzibit] That's brilliant! There's no way this has been done before, it will be the greatest game ever!


Xzibit: That true dawg.

Allow me to take this opportunity to ask you if there's a game out there, based on a television series, which has done well. Please, take your time. I'll still be here.

Thought of anything? Nope, neither could I. We can only hope that the newly released Game of Thrones game is at least passable [EDIT: It isn't]. Pimp My Ride, however, is nowhere near it.

It starts off by telling you the basis of every episode of the show; you find a loser with a shitty car, you have to make the car the most outrageous, stupid piece of junk to hit the streets, then film the reaction of the now ecstatic client. All the while the vehicle just needs to run until the cameras stop rolling*. *(citation needed)

This would totally fit with my daily lifestyle! I can't wait to mix some tunes in the boot of my car!

So your first customer is Marcia and her car, to be frank, is a bomb. The graphics don't even give the detailing any justice either, making it look like a bunch of poorly grouped polygons. Anyway, you're given Xzibit's ride as a loan and you have to collect enough money in order to fix the car. Ways to get said money include ramming into other cars, hitting parking metres and smashing down billboards. Oh, what's that? You don't want to dint Xzibit's car because you adore him? That's cool, as your car won't take any damage. From anything. Driving along at 100km/h and slam straight into a wire fence. Nothing happens. If you're lucky, you'll bounce off.

I'm going to make a quick assumption here and say that the game isn't aiming to be realistic in any sense of the word. I mean, it can't call itself a 'real driving simulator' if the driving mechanics include you running into billboards, parking metres and other cars for an extra dollar. If I was paid $10 for every car I ran into, I'd buy myself the biggest, meanest car and do the job properly. Driving around in a rusted metal shit-bucket pushing buses and trucks around with ease is not my idea of a driving simulator. It's an excuse to call a shit game even worse.

I've seen better pieces of shit...in a...toilet.

...yeah...
And the mini-games...geez! Both of the mini-games for these driving sections are just so terrible. Apart from the cruising past groups of people pressing three buttons in sequence to make some money, the game has your default character dance next to the car in what can only be called an awkward situation for everyone involved. The car moves along at around 5km/h while you worm, hip-hop, moonwalk and breakdown next to the car. I just focused on the button pressing during these parts as the player model looks so weird, so disjointed and out of place when he dances that you almost feel bad for what he's going through in this game. You feel some sympathy, knowing that inside he's probably ruing the day he was created for the game, thinking that pimping rides was fun and all.

"I hate my life." - Your character and yourself.

But wait, there's more!
"More of me dancnig?! =D"

No.

Once you get enough money to 'pimp' the car, you must drive around the map again to each of the different mechanics and designers to get the best deals. You have 2 minutes to get to them all and there's a mini-game for each part. This was actually the best part, as not only was there a sense of urgency in racing for the parts, but the mini-games were small, quick and generally fun. Things like the correct timing for button presses to rotations of the analogue stick actually shows some sort of mini-game potential for the game, if only the driving was improved...and everything else.



This is actually fun. I'm not even kidding.

(Also, thanks Cheatcc.com for the watermark!)
Once all that was over though and the timer expires, you're sent back to compare your car with your competitor. Yes, that's right, some computer-controlled sorry sod of a competitor wants to try and beat you at the designing game. It's almost too easy to beat them though. All you need to do is get the best things for the car which you can afford while the competitor looks like a joke. Every. Time.

At the end of the day, a game is about how much enjoyment and fun you made from it in the allotted time you've given it. In the case for Pimp My Ride, I couldn't finish it. It felt like a job, the tedious driving mechanics and everything making for a fairly unenjoyable time. I didn't want to spend my time getting enough money to do the borderline-good mini-games. It didn't feel as though the effort would be justified. So yeah, I'd give this game a miss unless you were to play for either a joke, a drunken night or because you're a sucker who gives in to pressure from others to torture yourself, all for the amusement of others. 

Or...you could watch this YouTube clip of Marcia's story. It takes out the middle portion of the game, but you don't need to see it. Tell them I sent you.


-- FINAL VERDICT --

Platform Used: Xbox 360

Score: 3/10

Recommendation: Avoid.

The only good thing that can come out of this game were the small minigames, but you can find similar ones on most other mini/party game titles. Apart from that, the game is just terrible. So...so terrible. Even if you're a fan, avoid.

Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) is better.

[EDIT: I take that back, that was harsh. It's not as terrible as StH06, it's just a really, really, REALLY bad game.]

Monday, May 21, 2012

Review: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) Part 2


My palms were sweating. Patience was wearing thin. It's okay, I thought. I can wait around for this. Only when I changed over to the football on TV for a little bit, saw a goal being scored, then turning back did I realise that nothing happened. The loading screen had been staring at me for a grand total of 13 minutes. I realised in that time, for the first time in my life, real disappointment. I hate this game.

TL;DR: 13 minutes before I could even attempt Shadow's first mission. That's how long I had to wait.

IT JUST WON'T STOP!!!

This game is so boring and it has it's loading screens and it's unfinished feel to blame for it. I have games that install on my Playstation 3 faster than it takes to load a level for Sonic the Hedgehog. When I said that I had so much to complain about, I wasn't lying. Now after completing the three main stories, I can safely say that the list has doubled. I can't say everything, otherwise I'll be here all day, so I'll just explain the worst of it so perhaps you can get an idea of just how depressed playing this game made me feel.

I can just hear him saying "You got yourself into this...".

I think the penultimate moment where my dislike of this game was magnified was the boss battle with Silver. It happened in Sonic's and I thought it was a glitch (it was) but then when I played against him as Shadow, the same thing repeated. You see, Silver has psycho-kinetic powers, so he could literally pick me up with the poser of his mind and throw me against a nearby wall, damaging me and making me lose all my rings. If he was close to this wall, he could so it again  and again and again until the ring that was falling out after being hit managed to avoid me. That's right, I wanted my lone ring to bounce away from me so that I could die. That's how much I disliked this game. I felt better when I was dead. But then that feeling didn't last long as I had to sit through another loading screen…

I hated this. I want Silver to go die.


I remember a quote during the game where my sidekick (I've forgotten their name, that's how memorable they are) comes up with an excellent quote whose timing can possibly put it next to Vector's line of "Find the computer room" as one of the worst delivered lines in Sonic history.

"Watch out Shadow! If something that big runs into you the soft footholds won't hold."

I heard this every single time I was dead. Not before, where a prior warning would have been accepted, but after it was needed.  My body lay sprawled on the ground, limbs lying next to me as if I was sleeping (there was not much slack for movement, it's G rated after all) and I was given warning about the big hunk of death that was coming towards me. I didn't like this late announcement one bit.

Yeah Shadow! Watch out for that big worm thing creeping up behind you!

I'm going to stop the Sonic slaying at the end of this next paragraph. I feel as though you get the picture of what I'm trying to say, plus I want to keep this entry fairly short in case my brain decides to explode at the thought of actually completing the game (I'll only do it if I get paid. There, I said it).

This last point is about a civilian in Soleanna, again, because you end up going there quite a fair bit. This civilian had a yellow exclamation mark on top of them but when I spoke to him, he said the same thing as the civilian on the opposite side of the road. Now, I thought this was just Sonic Team being lazy but no, it was worse. After wandering around all of Soleanna and not finding a single person with a blue exclamation mark, I decided to look every where else. After spending 20 minutes looking through every nook and cranny of all the hubs of the game, I decided to ragequit and turn off the game. After coming back to it a week later I ended up spawning next to the civilian who was copying the guy opposite him. He was now blue. He was now also about to die. I haven't played since.

"Can there be a sequel guys?"

No. No there will not be.




-- FINAL VERDICT --

Platform Used: Xbox 360

Score: 2/10

Recommendation: Avoid.

The game is glitchy. The game has a weak story. The game is terrible on all fronts.

Give it to a friend to play and watch the torture.

Thursday, February 23, 2012

Review: Sonic the Hedgehog (2006) Part 1



I can't do this. I just can't.

Yes, I suppose I can call myself a Sonic fan-boy, but I just can't finish this game. I think I've played a total of about 30 minutes and watched about 50 minutes of loading screens and cut-scenes. It's absurdly ridiculous. I had to wait a full 8 minutes, possibly longer, before I could control Sonic for the first time, and that wasn't even in a Stage level. That was during the Town sequences, which is the hub world of the game and has some terrible, terrible glitches.


Also the game is stupid. I mean, grinding the water? Seriously Sega?!

At the start of your control over Sonic, you have to find Tails. Once that happens, Tails will now follow you everywhere. I feel there must be something wrong with his shoes, giving him an excuse to fly everywhere. Whenever he lands after flying, it's like his feet are on ice and he just slides away, usually over the edge of the level and into the water, killing him off. If this happens, don't panic! He comes back after the next loading screen, which are all too frequent.

Stupid Tails. I don't like you.

While walking (running) around the Town sequences in Soleanna at the beginning of the game, you will also find yourself missing turns and running into walls a lot. That is normal, Sonic's meant to be fast. Sometimes when you hit a wall you may freeze and stay still for about 5-6 seconds. This is not normal. What adds to the frustration is a lack of direction during these sections. The loading screen may say "You must stop Eggman!" but it never says 'how', it just gives you the general story mission and then says "Here you go, you need to do this. Find it yourself though, because I ain't helping". Although this works for some games, not a Sonic game. If anyone remembers Sonic Adventure, you'll know why...

At least it has occasional moments where you can go fast...

Also throughout these town sequences there are people just waiting to tell you useless information like how they want to go snowboarding or that they're late. These people have a yellow exclamation mark above their head. Then there are those people who may or may not point you in the right direction, depending on what mission you're up to. These people have orange exclamation marks above them. Then there's the people who have quests/missions ready for you to do. These are either side missions or actual story missions. They have a blue exclamation mark. An easier way to find them all is to look at your mini-map while running into buildings at every corner.

Now there's this one guy who's hanging around Soleanna the first time you're there (and possibly later, I dunno) and he has an orange mark above his head. You would assume that he helps you along to the next part of the game, right? Ha, no. Why would he?

"When things settle down I'd like to go to the beach with my girlfriend. Or maybe a barbeque in the desert!

Hmm... No, a barbeque in the woods might be better. Or skiing! Or snowboarding!

But first I need to find a girlfriend. So much to do, so little time…"
Liek if u crieddd...

Yes. I really needed that life-saving information about your lack of a girlfriend. Have a cup of concrete and join the club. This didn't help me in the slightest with progressing to the next part of the game, which I've explained is done shitty.

There's another character with an orange exclamation mark above their head which I'd like to point out. It's a bishop and you cannot progress any further in the game unless you talk to him. Although it's told to you by one of the people hanging around Soleanna, you can theoretically move through the game without the need for talking to any orange people. Just talk to the blue guys an you'll be fine. But no, this bishop is different. You have to talk to him so he can take you to some ruins where you'll have to play three different mini-games against the clock to show your worth. They are Courage, Intelligence and Love. The Courage test is fairly obvious; kill all the robots in the given time limit. The Intelligence test then moves a little further from that, telling you to go through warp holes until you get to the goal ring. This is not really an intelligence test and more a memory test. Then come the stupidest test of the three of them; you have to decide whether to save Amy or Elise from impending doom.


She's not a lover if she's a stalker.


Protip: No one likes Amy, so it only makes sense you need to pick Elise. If you pick Amy you fail the test, which is worse than failing your primary school acceptance test at age 31 after finishing university and going back because you're an idiot.

Oh, last note about those tests. Once you complete them all you get access to the next level gate via an eagle picking you up and taking you there. You had to go grind through those tests before you can progress, which makes the game look stupid when Tails is just sitting there at the gate, waiting and taunting you for not have two tails available to be used as a helicopter.

I have so much more to complain about on the subject of this game, but I'm going to give Sonic the benefit of the doubt...for now. Looks like I'm going to have to suck it up and beat it. Prepare for Part 2 soon...

Mother of God...what have I done?

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Well this is overwhelming...

Wow. I honestly didn't expect that many responses. Looks like I'm going to be looking at a fair few games. I haven't posted for a bit as I've been tracking down some of your suggestions. Some are old and a couple are fairly new, so there's a good mix. I like it.

So please be patient as I go through my paces and get through all these games. There are some I'm looking forward to and others...well...not so much.

Anyway, before I go, I'll leave you with this picture. Think of it as a little teaser as to what's coming up...

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Set me a challenge!

So I've been thinking recently, maybe the games I'm looking at aren't to your liking. That's cool. If they're not maybe give me some idea as to what you want me to look at. It could be anything, whether it be Hello Kitty on the Playstation 2 or even Lylat Wars on the Nintendo 64. Any game, any console. If I can get my hands on it, I'll play it and tell you about it.

This is not a cry of a desperate man, but a call out to anyone wanting to make their opinions known. I will play anything. ANYTHING!

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Diary of an MMORPG player: Flyff, Day 4



This game is broken.

The quest asked me to collect 15 'Mia Dolls' from the enemy 'Mia' which are little girls with a ball and chain who are...life-like dolls?

So I get to my 15th Mia Doll after about an hour of killing them off and I go to pick it up and...it's...floating?


I know the screenshot shows a bag of Penya (the currency) but the same thing happened on a hard-to-get quest item. Get over yourself you Flyff-freaks.


Okay, so it's floating. No big deal. Yeah, I can tell myself that, but when my character runs back and forth underneath it travelling 4 pixels each way, you know you're never going to pick up that item. Ever.


GIVE ME YOUR PENYA! I WANT TO ADD THAT MONEY TO MY OVER ONE MILLION BAG OF IT!


So now that's out of the way, I'd like to speak to you about the best combo to ever be seen by me at such my low level (which when writing this, is roughly 30). Since my job is an acrobat and I use bows and arrows or a pair of yo-yos (which I only use if I run out of arrows) I've found the best action combo to date. First, some backstory on what the action moves are.

Action moves are like your special hotkey moves, except that the key you press is "C" and you can have between 1 and 5 moves in the action bar, whether they're 5 different moves or 5 of the same. They're your job-specific special attacks, in other words. They mostly use up FP (Fighting Points or Fatigue Points), which is that green bar you see in the screenshots, but they can also use MP (Magic Points) which is the blue bar. However, it's not something you can spam, as every time you use your designated actions the bar decreases by half a slot before slowly recharging. There are ways around this though, which brings me to my favourite combination at the present time.


Here's the status bar. Green = FP bar and Blue = MP bar.


This potion is one of the best I've used so far. Unlimited MP use for 20 minutes. You can get these from quests.


This is your Action Bar. See the black bar on the side? That's the cooldown and whatever's got the black on it can't be used until the cooldown recharges/goes away.


This give you unlimited use for your action bar, getting rid of the cooldown.


For my combination, you need to first use a Refresher Hold, which not only refills your MP bar but gives you infinite MP for 20 minutes. Then I would use an Enhanced Activition which allows infinite actions to take place for 30 minutes. After filling in your action bar with 5 slots of "Rapid Shot", which sends down 3 arrows at a time, four times (in other words it's 4(3x) where x = an arrow, for the math-savvy and for those who failed maths, it sends 12 arrows) you spam "C". This makes quick work of nearly every enemy under level 35, which for someone under level 30, is pretty good. It cuts through them so quickly, my mercenary friend was jelly. Flavour? Raspberry.

Before I finish this post for today, I'd like to show you a second quest from one of the NPCs.


If you look at the writing at the bottom, she seems so sweet. Especially after giving me 100,000 Penya.


Oh no, the knives are rusty! Maybe she should go over to the food shop and see if he has any cooking utensils. I'm sure you have something else pre-prepared in the fridge.


Look, I'm pretty sure you'll be fine without some knives. Maybe use your hands? It's not like there's a problem with your mothering...


"Once again be a fit mother"? That's a bit harsh. But anyway, Sharp Edges aye? I'm sure I can find like an old piece of machinery and pull off some non-rusty parts. That should be fine, right?


Wait what?! Pulling off their legs?? A 'little' vicious?! And I said that this game was for a younger audience, how wrong I was. This game is for serial killers and those with an addiction to pull things off other living beings!


This is the part where over-protective parents say "Protect the kids! Ban this game!". They are idiots. It's not going to stop me questing, whether it be this quest telling me to rip the legs off Mantis' to make knives or to slay countless pumpkins to find the right amount of matches (I think it's a Halloween reference). Either way, let's see what kind of black magic this game can throw at me now that I'm a level 30. Flyff, SHOW ME YOUR WORST!

Friday, January 27, 2012

Review: Just Cause



Have you ever seen a game and thought to yourself "That is going to be the best game ever! OMG!"? Chances are you've seen a preview or a review in a magazine, on the internet or from a friend and your expectations are really high for when you get the game. You're told:

• A massive amount of space to explore.
• A huge gallery of weapons.
• Lots of vehicles to use.
• You can do tricks and stuff on the vehicles and jump from one to the other!
• You can fly helicopters and it is SIK BRO!

Sometimes it's only one of the above, sometimes it's two. When I first heard about Just Cause my expectations included all five.


OMG OMG OMG DIS IS FULLY SIK!


The game map is around 1000km squared alone, which is a hell of a lot of travelling time on foot. I suppose that's why they have a large selection of vehicles including tanks, tractors, jet skis, speedboats, helicopters, fighter jets and even huge passenger jets. Sounds pretty cool right? Then you have the weapons which include pistols, machine guns, shotguns, grenade launchers and the obligatory rocket launcher. It even has a grappling hook, which is an integral part of the game. As I said; from the information above, expectations were pretty high.



After playing the game and beating it's very small campaign of 22 missions (which can be completed in a couple of hours), the game feels bare. It feels repetitive. It feels as though they tried to fit all these cool ideas in and then tripled their appearances. Quite frankly, I was pretty disappointed. The game promised so much and left me feeling like I played something empty. I had no joy for the most part. I didn't connect with the characters. Rico, the protagonist and your character, has very few lines which are only in the script because of his European accent. Your so-called "guide" Tom is probably the better character, but he talks way too much. The characters just don't feel balances enough in the right areas.


Stolen, but oh so true.


Now onto those points; the selling points for the game.

Most vehicles are useless. You may think you're cool stealing a car and running over a few motorists on their motorbikes, but once you unlock the ability to call in a little gyrocopter to wherever you are, there's no point using a vehicle. This is nowhere near Grand Theft Auto, yet it tried so hard. And it's selling point of the helicopters? There are some like the gyrocopter which are alright to use. The rest? Utterly hopeless. You may think it's easy to either go up or down, side to side, forward and back but the way it does it, which I'm guessing is trying to be as life-like as possible, is annoying as hell. If I needed to travel to one side of the massive map, I'd use a helicopter, but I usually ended up getting it to top speed, aiming it to where I wanted to go and then jump out and holding on to the back. Doing a "trick" such as this locks the vehicles speed and altitude, so you could put the controller down and go make yourself a cup of tea while you're travelling from North-East to South-West.


Pictured: Cheating.


Speaking about the map, it is big. Not quite as big as something like The Elder Scrolls III: Morowind but it's big enough to take 20 minutes to get from one side to the other. Most of it has nothing in it as well. Once I finished the main campaign I set a task for myself to go around the whole map clockwise and liberate every government-controlled or Mendoza-controlled town, army base or city. This, so far, has taken longer than the campaign itself. Then there are the collection items, which may sound like a lot when you consider there's over 100 across the entire map but compared to the feathers in Assassin's Creed II, it's super-easy. They appear as black dots on your map anyway, so the challenge to find them is replaced by the challenge of which direction to collect them from in relation to the whereabouts of the next closest one.


For reference:
GTA III: 8 sq.km
GTA VC: 10 sq.km
GTA SA: 36 sq.km
GTA IV: 8 sq.km
Oblivion: 41 sq.km
Fallout 3: 41 sq.km
Farcry 2: 50 sq.km
Just Cause: 1,000 sq.km


There's not much to say about the weapons except that they all lock on to the enemies (except the grenade launcher, which is fairly awesome once acquired). They all also follow the similar routine of:

1. Cast your view across the battlefield
2. Lock onto enemy
3. Spray bullets until the enemy is dead
4. Repeat steps 1-3 until all enemies are dead
5. ???
6. Profit!



One thing about Just Cause which I believed worked to their advantage was the grappling hook. Just lock onto the vehicle you want to use and pull the trigger. Once grappled, you can parasail after them, travel toward them and drive or release the grapple, lock onto another vehicle and grapple onto that vehicle. When starting off, this is generally the best way to move around unless you find a really fast car and an empty, eight-lane freeway. The other thing which I found myself doing was getting a helicopter and going up. Forever. Well, eventually the game's invisible walls stopped you, but once you got high enough you can get out of the vehicle and skydive down to the islands below. The views here are pretty good. Then you can release your parachute whenever you want and travel down slowly, wasting your endless time to end the government's rule and help the revolution. It's best to do this during the day as at night, contrary to popular belief, there are hardly any lights and a plane can run into you.


From such a height, you can put the controller down for a bit and rest your hands. Not like you would've played long enough for that, but the opportunity's there.


I haven't really touched on the story in this review and my reasoning for that it that it's empty. They had an opportunity to explore everything about a revolution yet instead chose to make the game more about flying around in helicopters. Plus the whole revolution thing doesn't sound like it's working when you're doing the same fetch-quest side mission for the fifth time, stealing the same tank from the same place. It just feels like it's all a game to them…

Oh wait.



-- FINAL VERDICT --

Platform Used: Xbox 360

Score: 6/10

Recommendation: Try, but stay frosty.

Avalanche Studios tried really hard with this (you'd like to think so) and they had such a good idea. It's repetitive. A secret opperative trying to help overthrow a government in an open-world setting is golden, but they didn't quite pull it off. It's repetitive. I think I've got to try Just Cause 2 to see if they've improved.

Also, it's repetitive.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Diary of an MMORPG player: Flyff, Day 3



Ding! Level 15 Reached!

It may not be an achievement in Borderlands but it's the truth about my character in Flyff. Level 15 is pretty much the next stage in your life; just like your seedy adolescence, it is the time to get your first job. And let me tell you that they pay really good too, better than the $1.10 you can make elsewhere.

You have four jobs to choose from at level 15 and these branch out into subcategories, but we'll focus on these first jobs...first. It is also the time where you have to consider joining a party as some quests will require a party for completion and the jobs sort of compliment each other in a sense. However, I'll get to that a bit later.


We'll be going through this 100%...if I play for that long.


Acrobat: The Acrobats are the types to stand back with a bow and arrow (or even an over-sized double yo-yo) and use their speed to attack quickly from a distance, run away for a bit and continue the attacking. In a party they can sit back while a Mercenary tanks (see: Mercenary) and continue firing from a distance, meaning that assists can usually ignore them as they'll be the last ones to get attacked.



Assist: Assists to just that: assist. They're like the white mage of the group, the healers. Their job by themselves is to use a two-handed stick and hope that they don't die while repeatedly healing themselves. In a party, they heal everyone else and bring them back from the dead. Against tougher enemies such as bosses or monsters in the Colosseum, an Assist is a must. The downside? You barely see any around as you're not the one killing the monsters. It's sort of an "in the background" job if you ask me.



Magician: There are no balloon animals from the magicians (as far as I know. That would be SO cool if there was). These guys (or gals) are your stock black magic characters. Using your trusty staff, you're there to FSU with some magic. To be honest, I know the least about this class. Maybe time to get one in my party for a game of 20 questions...



Mercenary: Do you like big-ass swords? Are you a fan of small creatures with a red ball on their head that follow you around and sell you items? If so, you'll love Kingdom Hearts or Final Fantasy. For those of you who like buffing up their health, healing items such as potions and food at the ready and the ability to make an aggressive monsters think "I want to make him tomorrow afternoon's pate", then the Mercenary is for you! The Mercenary is your primary attacker and your tank. If you don't know what a tank is in the terms I'm using, it's the player who has the high defence and high health who takes the attacks of the enemy while everyone else gets off scot-free. This is pretty much my definition of the Mercenary.



After looking at all the jobs, I decided on choosing the Acrobat job, mainly because I'm not a magic sort of person (unless it's fireballs at the start of The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion) and my friend who got me to play Flyff chose the Mercenary. I thought that sitting back shooting arrows sounded pretty cool anyway, compared to healing everyone else while they get the experience. So I get a little present in my inventory, I open it up and get new armour including boots, chest armour, gauntlets and a hat. After looking at the nearest weapons shop at all the new stuff I could buy, I realised that the armour I was given was better than the best armour the shop had, which I couldn't buy until I was level 24. Broken armour is broken?

So that's the first tier of jobs right there. I'm going to try and look at a couple of individual quests next time I get around to playing, as I've done some so far which would fit under the category of ''weird'' and I'm sure there's going to be even worse. I'll also try and get a couple more screens of the actual game world instead of the usual stock photos. =P

Friday, January 20, 2012

Diary of an MMORPG player: Flyff, Day 2



Okay, I admit it. That previous post probably didn't help my cause about playing Flyff. But you know what? Neither do I, that's why I'm asking. >.>

So anyway, I started off my adventure in a little town called Flarine. Now you might expect the town to be the size of a town like, say, Pallet Town? Well, it's larger than that. In fact, it's so big it has a Flarine Central, Flarine East and a Flarine North. Nope, no West or South. Not cool enough methinks.



Is it just me, or does it look like an ax on it's side?


So you start in Central Flarine and you accustom yourself to many of the different stalls. I'm one of those impatient people when it comes to some games, so I didn't read much of the text as I went through all of the introductory quests. However, it got to a stage where I was told to go to the Shield Shop. Me, being the brute that I am, didn't necessarily want a shield...

(Weapons) Boboku: "Now you're ready to look at shields."

[Quest Declined]

(Weapons) Boboku: "Look, I know it's not as exciting as axes and swords, but you'll need one just the same. Plus he's got plenty of other stuff for sale, so pay him a visit."

[Quest Declined]

(Weapons) Boboku: "Go see Luda next door at the Shield Shop and he'll take care of you (otherwise I will)."



That hammer isn't just for show...


The NPC was bigger than me and I'm pretty sure was also invincible, so I didn't like my chances. I ended up getting some pissy shield, because no-one cares about a Level 1 when you have to go and kill the easiest enemies around: an Aibatt.


It's like a cross between a Zubat and a Gastly while equally as common.


Anyway, a couple of hours pass (because I can say that SO casually) and I return to the Flarine's historian Martinyc after finishing one of her quests, ready to start a new one. This is where the game really shines. Well, I shouldn't really say that, but the following situation will bring to light exactly what these NPCs actually expect of me:


[Historian] Martinyc: “I received plenty of money to study history thanks to you.”

[From previous exchanges, I've found out that most of the history books are corrupt, with fake entries and whatnot.]

[Historian] Martinyc: “The other day I was almost killed by renegade Blades but I cannot stop now. No matter what the History Society wants.”

[Um...what? You survived an attempted assassination by the...History Society? You are a ditsy NPC, how the hell did you survive??]

[Historian] Martinyc: “I will found out the true history of Madrigal, I have to. Would you please help me? The danger for you could be great however.”

[I'm pretty sure you meant "find". As for the danger being great? It can't be too much harder than some level 12 Lawolves.]

[Historian] Martinyc: “Will you help me regardless of the danger?”

[Hang on a second here. Regardless? This could be a trick. You might be the Devil Incarnate ready to bring forth a volcano from where I stand with the click of your fingers. I could be captured, mutilated horribly and then tortured for whatever information I hold, which is practically nothing because I've skipped most of the game's dialogue. TL;DR: I'm having second thoughts here...]



Pictured: Danger.


So anyway, I'm reaching level 15 soon, which means that I can get rid of the label "Vagrant" and I can choose my first job. Hopefully these jobs have a better pay rate than some fast food outlets and service stations...