Bioware vs Bethesda Softworks RPGs

I have to admit, I haven't turned on my Xbox 360 in a long time, but I recently did so and started playing my favorite type of game (RPGs) again.

So I've played:  Fallout: New Vegas, Fable 3, and now Mass Effect 2.

Can I say something about the Fable franchise, first? I hate you. I've never actually hated an RPG series before. Sure, some are lacking and tedious and boring; but I actually hate Fable. I hate having to marry people. I hate the idea of having children in game. And, I really don't see the need to murder my wife for a sword upgrade. I had been playing this for a while (suffering thru it more like) until I realized that I've actually grown to hate this thing. The quests are boring and there is too much backtracking. Every zone is "find the easter eggs" (books, gnomes, keys, whatever) just to lengthen a very short story line. Wander thru zones is just miserable, with preset encounters that respawn way too quickly and are just tedious exercises in wasting my time. No loot, no real reward. Just a time sink every time. Some stupid relationship quest made me drag a women from Bowerstone (or whatever its called) all the way to Mistpeak lake. Fuckin' really? That's like 8 zones away. And then I'm expected to drag her back? I guess she died or something half way there cuz after some little troll things attacked me, she vanished. I said "Thank god."

Sure, you could argue that you don't need to get married or have kids in Fable 3. But if you don't, you will not earn enough "guild seals" to upgrade your character and you'll suck. What other game requires you to kiss a girl to get more powerful attacks? Makes no sense at all. Buy a house? Maintain a house, too? Decorate it? WTF is this shit.

Yes the combat is fun and intuitive. It -is- cool to swing your sword, shoot your gun, and fire off a spell very quickly. Granted. But the sword is wholly un-necessary. Link 2 AoE spells (when you get that ability) and fire your rifle and every fight is a guaranteed win.

The part of the game that annoyed me least was the overt advertisements for paid download content in the quest hub area. It bugged me at first, but I kind of liked the easy accessibility to new stuff and if the game were better, I might have even bought some of it. Yes, the guy reminding you to buy stuff got old, but I kind of liked that feature to be honest. It's a trend I wish would continue, more along the lines of "content" addons and less with vanity addons. I'll get to that post one day.

I never finished this game because, why bother? I wasn't enjoying it. Unless I'm totally bored, I cannot imagine buying Fable 4 when it comes out. I feel like I've been punished enough by this company.

Now, onto the main point of this post.

Bethesda Softworks and Bioware. Can these companies possibly make games that are any better? Everything they make is fuckin' awesome.

After my Fallout 3 review (and minor gripes), I'm sure it'll come no surprise to you what I thought of Fallout: New Vegas. Odd, that the same radscorpion problem exists. They still become landsharks all the time. Weird.

The New Vegas story did kind of suck, though. After you get to Vegas (I got to Vegas at near max level cuz I did everything I could outside the city, first) and start helping Mr House, the game takes a turn where you know you are helping the bad guy but still are forced into doing so. No choice you make at the end is acceptable. I decided to help the Yes Man. Killing Mr House and Caesar's Legion/NCR. Oh well. The ending was pretty bad. Just a bunch of lame screen shots with summaries of what I did and how it affected things in the end. If that was more interesting, I might have tried helping Mr House and seeing what happened there, but the incentive was gone. Although the dam battle was pretty fun, especially seeing the Boomers fly in with that bomber you pulled from the lake and nuke the place. That was sweet.

Up until that point, I totally loved the game. I love the looting system. With humanoids dropping the gear they are using, it really makes it seem like they are playing by the same set of rules as you are. I like that. It's fair. Except Deathclaws, of course. Bastards. I did end up killing the mother and alpha in the quarry. And I even killed the legendary one in the deathclaw cave. Riot shotgun made that a ton easier - with a mini nuke appetizer of course.

Everything I loved about Fallout 3 was here and it was easy to get into this one again.

Mass Effect 2 (which I quit Fable 3 to play) has got to be the best game ever made. It's fuckin' ridiculous how awesome it is. Just about everything in there is perfect. Combat is awesome. Quests are fun. Sidequests from scanning planets are short, sweet and varied. The cut scenes are still the best ever. Bioware rules at this. I haven't finished this yet, but I have a sneaking suspicion of where it's going. I have a feeling that the Shephard you play is genetically modified by the Reapers much like the Protheans - possibly by Cerberus while you were reconstructed cuz the Illusive Man clearly knows more than he's letting on. Just a hunch, but it feels that way or that one collector dude wouldn't have such a hard-on for you personally.

I have to admit that after you get your ship and Joker comes around the corner again, I smiled. I thought he had died in the beginning along with you - I didn't think the escape pod made it out. That was cool. I also like that what you did in Mass Effect 1 matter in the sequel (if you imported your saved game). I also like that the enemy is pretty much the same and it continues the story, rather than just a new villain. And where it's going seems to make a little sense too. I also like that your companions from Mass Effect 1 are in the game and that they still exist. Some are even team members again. That's real cool.

Complaints. Fuckin' zombies (husks). I am so tired of zombies in games, it is unreal.

Anyways, I find myself playing this for 4-5 hours at a time because I just can't put it down. Love this thing. It's crazy how much fun it is. The planet where, if you stand in the sun, your shield takes damage. Awesome. The mini quest where you escort this robot around with a power defect and need to find him power cells. Cool. (Reward made that a total waste of time, though). Jacob's companion quest. That was fucked up. Jack's was very interesting and unexpected.

Each game has its downsides though. And, oddly, the other company is strong where the other is weak. I'm going to list those differences and how interesting I think that is.

Bioware: Excellent at story telling and making you feel part of the action.

Bethesda Softworks: Kinda weak at the main story.  Side stories are a lot better than the main one. Your part of a story but you don't really feel part of it. I can't explain it better than that, sorry.

Bioware: Loot system practically non-existent.

Bethesda Softworks: Excellent loot system.

Bioware: Not "open world". Way points and places to travel to. Yes, I get that there are planets and you have to fly to them. I counter with: Dragon Age. Imagine that as open world.

Bethesda Softworks: Open world. Do anything you want, when you want.

Bioware: Because of the loot system and non-open world, you feel throttled (money, gear, etc - you get stuff when the story dictates it) by the game.

Bethesda Softworks: Because of the loot system and open world, you are not throttled. You can progress (money, gear, etc) based upon drops, random finds and hoarding everything you find. You don't even have to do a single quest forever, just kill shit and loot shit to your heart's content. I imagine some gamer out there has amassed a huge pile of every tin can, wrench, empty soda bottle in the game somewhere just for the hell of it.

Bioware: Nothing, really, to pick up in the environments. Everything looks pretty (really pretty!) but nothing is tangible. It's just a back drop.

Bethesda Softworks: Nearly everything can be touched, moved, looked at, picked up, looted, etc. A hoarder's dream!

Bioware: Awesome cut scenes. Unbelievably awesome. Like a movie.

Bethesda Softworks: What's a cutscene? We don't even give you a movie at the end of the game for you to enjoy.

Bioware: Enemies seem to have a different rule set than you do. They can fire more quickly than you, move more quickly and make up abilities than you cannot perform. This has its pluses and minuses.

Bethesda Softworks: All monsters (well, humanoids) seem to play by the same set of rules. You can see their weapon in VATS and know it'll drop when they die. This also has its pluses and minuses.

Bioware: Varied side quests that keep the interest level up.

Bethesda Softworks: All quests pretty much amount either: go here get that for me or go there kill that.

Bioware: Companions to talk to, get quests from and help you in combat. The, sadly, inevitable sex scene with one of them that is poorly done.

Bethesda Softworks: Limited companions (1 at a time, it seems) with a quest. Fallout New Vegas started this trend, maybe it'll continue.

I sometimes imagine these 2 companies getting together and making some sort of epic game where one picks up where the other is lacking. A Bioware story with Bethesda open world and loot system. Thing would probably cover 4 DVDs but it'd be worth it, I'm sure.

Anyways, after I finish Mass Effect 2, I'll wait Bethesda's next chance to suck my life away.

Puzzle Quest 2 Review

So I've started playing Puzzle Quest 2 on my Xbox 360. I loved the first Puzzle Quest, but didn't feel like it played well on the Xbox, so I played it on the PC instead. This time, I decided to play it on the 360, since I want the achievement points (yeah, I don't know why either).

I'm going to start this little mini review with some peeves and I'll finish up with some positives and more or less let you decide if you want to play the game or not.

So I start playing the game. The intro quests are pretty easy (the troll fight is kinda cool), then you get into the real game and your first encounter is with a "Rat swarm" or something. A bunch of rats that do rather puny amounts of damage. Seems easy enough, right? It's then that the game introduces a mechanic that lets opponents block attacks an insane amount of the time. This rat thing has a defense of like 52 (which I presume means he blocks 52% of the time, though I'm still not sure if that's correct - but it seems close). So my sorcerer does like 1 point of damage on a 3 skull match. And maybe 5 on a spell attack at this point. The rat wipes the floor with me. And here I am thinking - this is retarded. So, instead I make the Paladin type character (a tank essentially - doesn't do a lot of damage, but a lot of mitigation so he's hard to kill). And it's a lot easier. Fights take a while, but there are long stretches where I don't even have to match tiles. I can completely control the battlefield. I just steal his action points and hit him with my sword - 9 hit points at a time adds up after a while. So, in summary - the game has some really irritating combat mechanics (especially blocking - though I understand why they put it in there).

The next thing that bugs the crap out of me are the quests. Not the quests themselves, they are as varied as they can be for a match-3 type game. But after you complete a quest, you gotta wait like 10-15 seconds while it rewards you xp, gold, items and then completes it; before you can even move again. It's silly and pointless. Needless delays like that are just frustrating. Leading me to the next point...

The combat animations are cute at first, but why do I have to keep watching my guy swing his sword for the millionth time? A way to turn that off would be nice. Yes, it does 9 hit points. Sometimes it criticals for 18. I know. I know. I also know it'll inevitably be blocked and do 4 hit points.

The looting of treasure chests and piles is stupid. Another match 3 game here, of course. If you get a "heroic effort" you get a random chest to spawn. If you match 3 of those, you'll get a "rare" item. Rarely is it worth the effort (see what I did there?). Yes, it's an item - not gold or some sort of material - so theoretically it could be helpful. But probably won't be. Also, it's always fun when those "rare" chests spawn at the bottom of the grid, then the grid eats it before you even have the chance to match it up.

Upgrading items. You cannot see what the end result of your "upgrade" is before spending the materials. I guess it's predictable if you use it enough; but really it would have been a simple mechanic to add to the game.

Monsters seem to get lucky in their "drops" WAY too often. Sometimes, you can catch the AI knowing what is coming next when it makes a play that makes no sense (IE skipping a match 4 to get 3 reds instead) which then produces a huge heroic effort. There is no way that move gets made unless the AI knows what gems are in the future rows that you can't see. It happens way too often to be a coincidence or random chance. That is the main source of frustration in the game too, unfortunately. I think that's the  "challenge" I guess. If the AI played straight, it'd be a cake walk.

That's quite a list. A lot of it comes down to randomness in the game, but other parts are simply lazy coding. But really the game has a lot of fun features too that make it better than the first.

The combat is a lot more dynamic. You have a lot more abilities that you can swap in and out between battles to see how your toon performs. You can also learn new spells through quests - and that is very cool. Though most do not seem to be made for a Templar. That's okay.

The dungeon exploring is fun. No more just pretending to enter a cave and kill a rat. You actually explore an entire dungeon, going room to room (not freely of course, it's guided) and killing stuff.

The quests are pretty varied (keeping in mind every one of them is a match 3 game). Putting out a fire (blue matches put it out, red matches hurt you), freeing captured goblins from their chains, etc etc etc.

The use of items is a lot nicer. In the first Puzzle Quest, I wasn't sure half the time what I had equipped, now it's all very obvious and the inventory is handled pretty well. You can shop for items at vendors that are in town or sometimes in the dungeons and upgrade those items as well (with the previously mentioned caveat).

The game offers some intense challenges. The first "Greater Challenge" is a Yeti that is just insane. Requires good board management to win. And some luck - sucks when he gets 81 red gems on his opening turn and kills you immediately (if he gets 65 red gems, he does a 999 hp instant kill attack). Ended up winning that one with 7 hps left. The second one is a bit easier, a Cave Ogre - which was not that bad on the Templar once I played to my strengths - not matching tiles and using action points for weaker hits. Ended up winning that one with 33 hps left. After fights like these, the normal fights almost seem boring.

I haven't finished the game of course, but you can see I've listed what I think are pretty fair pro's and con's about it. I'd recommend it - if you like match 3 games and can tolerate some really frustrating fights. If you don't and can't - then don't get it. It's pretty simple, I think.