I don’t play MMOs. Like most gamers, I’ve dipped a toe into the inviting waters of World Of Warcraft,
but I could never quite give myself over to its intimidating demands.
Sampling the full spread of available game experiences takes a lot of
time, and Blizzard simply asks too much. I’m by no means alone, and
we’re the people Sony Online Entertainment had in mind when it created DC Universe Online
– the first major MMO on a console, and an antidote to the numbing
point-and-click gameplay that has come to dominate the genre.
At this point, it’s worth noting just how good a first impression DC
Universe Online makes. With the help of revered comic book artist Jim Lee,
Sony Online Entertainment has created the most attractive MMO on the
market. Granted, it’s still a long stride behind the sort of visual
fidelity found on PlayStation 3 and PC, but the combination of Lee’s
art-style and the resonance of DC’s characters and locations give the
game an instant appeal that can’t expressed in pixels.
The game world spans Metropolis, Gotham City and beyond, and
Superman, Batman, The Joker and a host of other famous characters ensure
you’re never far away from a welcome nostalgia kick. Most of the
shorter missions are taken directly from old DC storylines, while the
over-arching plot is a new and utterly convincing addition to the canon.
I’m sure most of the references sailed several feet above my head, but I
noticed enough to be convinced that only the most ardent fan-boy will
find any way to complain.
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The MMO market has moved on from the days when every studio was
trying (in vain) to topple World Of Warcraft, and Sony Online
Entertainment doesn’t seem too bothered about attracting those already
playing an MMO. The evidence that DC Universe Online was developed with
the PlayStation 3 in mind is everywhere, from the UI to the fast, fluid
combat system. Indeed, the combat is arguably the game’s best feature,
and I suggest that anyone playing it on a PC try it with an Xbox 360 pad
before settling on a mouse and keyboard.
The majority of MMOs are based on combat of some kind, but usually it
amounts to little more than clicking on cards. DC Universe Online
employs a system that has more in common with a straight-up brawler,
built around pressing and holding buttons in combination with the
thumb-sticks. There are special skills, of course, but the sort of
attacks normally used to just wait out cool-down periods are now
engaging in their own right, and much more effective as a result. Make
no mistake, in terms of combat DC Universe Online outstrips virtually
everything else out there.
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The character creation has been criticised for lack of variety and
cumbersome controls, and while I have no argument with the latter, the
former seems to spring from Sony’s desire to go against the grain. At
the start of the game you choose your character’s class by selecting his
mentor, and define other aspects like their powers, combat style and
preferred method of travelling – whether super-speed, flying or
acrobatics, navigating DC Universe Online is both tactical and
thoroughly enjoyable – but Sony spreads an impressive amount of costumes
and accessories across the entire game as rewards. My character’s
appearance was in a state of constant flux until I was bearing down on
the level-cap.
There are a handful of problems, but DC Universe Online is in far
better condition than I would have guessed for a game that is, in many
respects, the first of its kind. Certain social aspects like voice-chat
have been problematic since its launch, while a lack of explanatory
material outside of the story missions might leave new MMO players out
in the cold. However, these problems only seem severe in the context of
the liberal amount of polish applied to other areas of the game, and for
the most part DC Universe Online is commendably stable.
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The main question, then, is are you willing to pay for DC Universe
Online’s considerable riches? At £39.99 for the game and a further £9.99
a month for a subscription it’s a tall order, especially when
high-profile competitors like The Lord Of The Rings Online and The Age Of Conan
seem committed to a free-to-play future, but that’s a personal choice I
won’t even attempt to influence. Reviews should be about quality, and
DC Universe Online has that in spades.
World of Warcraft is one of the most successful gaming franchises of
all time. Six years after its release, the game has increased its player
base to an all-time high of 12,000,000 subscribers this year. World of
Warcraft is a mind-bogglingly huge fantasy theme park that offers
players an incredible number of things to do, and keeps things fresh by
adding regular new content updates every few months and an expansion
pack every year or two. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is the third.
Like the two expansion packs before it, World of
Warcraft: Cataclysm brings plenty of new stuff to the table. First up
are a couple of new races: Goblins and the werewolf-like Worgen. Each of
these races has their own starting zone, which are very nicely designed
and put together.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: Fun with Goblins
Indeed, I'd say that leveling up a Goblin is one of the most fun
things I've done in WoW as a newbie character. The experience combines a
beautifully crafted series of quests and objectives that articulate a
meaningful story in a very fun way. Once you're through that initial new
zone, you go out into the World of Warcraft: Cataclysm world, and the
game becomes the Warcraft experience we know and love. But it's clear
the early levels were very lovingly designed and created, and you can
really feel the sheer effort the developers put into making the
experience a truly memorable one.
Even if you have no intention of levelling up a new character in
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm, I'd still recommending making a Goblin and
going through the starting zones just to appreciate them. The Worgen
starting area is also excellent, but it has a hard time matching the
Goblin experience, simply because that Goblin zone is so good.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: New features
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm also adds a new profession, Archeology,
new race/class combinations, a guild achievement system, a bunch of new
areas for high-level players to explore (and level up from the previous
level cap of 80 to the new cap of 85), and new dungeons and raids where
they can test their mettle. There's also quite a bit of love for those
who love to kill their fellow player. Not one, but two battlegrounds
have been added, and there's also a Wintergrasp-type open PvP area
called Tol Barad. Plus, for the first time, players get the chance to
battle one another in rated battlegrounds where the best players will
get spiffy, top-of-the-line PvP gear, and where the losers will get
slightly worse, but still decent gear.
One of the biggest highlights of the World of
Warcraft: Cataclysm expansion, however, is that as well as adding new
zones for old players, Cataclysm also completely changes the original
World of Warcraft game and makes its old content great for new players.
So much so, indeed, that I've written a new review of the old World of Warcraft game.
While old players are likely to enjoy this content, this move is much
more about attracting new players to WoW - or indeed helping bring back
players who might have played the game a while ago, but stopped. It has
all been done in a very ingenious manner - essentially driven by a
clever storyline that packages these changes in a very natural and
convincing way. A very clever move for sure, and one that shows that
Blizzard is certainly not resting on its laurels, despite its huge
success, and wants to continue to grow the World of Warcraft game even
more.
So those are the top-line, marketing-bullet-point changes. But World
of Warcraft: Cataclysm has also ushered in less obvious, but much deeper
changes to the game's underlying design mechanics.
World of Warcraft: Cataclysm: Changes to gaming mechanics
After two expansions of design evolution and feature creep, where
we've seen lots of new spells, new statistics, and new items being added
to the game, in many ways the developers essentially designed
themselves into a corner, making a game that was, by the end of the Lich
King expansion, very difficult to continue to build on in its
then-current guise. So to that end, while the world of Azeroth has been
wracked by massive upheaval caused by the eponymous Cataclysm, the
absolute fundamentals of WoW's gameplay have also been massively and
irrevocably altered in World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. Not necessarily in a
bad way - but certainly in a radical way.
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But before I start getting into the real nuts and bolts of that, let
me quickly let you know that I'm a hardcore WoW player. I've been
playing for a full six years, with virtually no break. I have fully
decked-out, top-level characters for each of the class roles: healing,
tanking, and damage, and each of them is fully equipped for PvE content
(player vs environment, or computer-controlled enemies) and PvP content
(competitive player vs player). I raid twice a week, and if I'm not
tooling around in game helping my fellow guildies, I'm killing Horde in
battlegrounds or Arenas. The point of me telling you this is so that you
can understand my perspective - and to warn you that this is where this
review might start getting a bit incomprehensible if you don't play
WoW, because I want to really get into the changes of the game mechanics
in the language of those who do.
And where those changes are most evident are in the dungeons and
raids, the real bread and butter of the World of Warcraft experience,
and where most people spend their time. The dungeons contain new
challenges and different settings, but their fundamentals will be
largely familiar to regular WoW players. What won't be familiar to some
people, but will be familiar to others, is how the way you now need to
play them has shifted and changed from Lich King to Cataclysm. After
playing a ton in beta, I'm really getting to grips with some very
subtle, but important shifts in the way the game works that will
probably surprise some people, delight some, annoy others, and catch
some people out completely.
Lich King was an expansion where we saw the rise of DPS characters
(damage) and their overpowered AOE (area of effect) spells. Tanks (the
people who keep monsters' attention - "agro" - and stop them from
attacking other people) had a fairly easy job keeping the enemy - often
several of them at the same time - focused on them, enabling players who
do damage to let loose every spell they could to destroy those enemy
monsters as quickly as possible. While this was fun, it taught players
very bad habits that will now unfortunately kill them in the new
expansion.
You see, in the original WoW release, tanks had a much tougher time
keeping the enemy focused on them, and because of that, if you weren't
careful about what monster you were hitting, and how hard you hit it, it
would stop hitting the tank and instead come after you and kill you. In
Lich King, you didn't need to worry about that, because tanks' ability
to keep the enemy attention on them was so over-powered. No matter what
you did, you could pretty much blast the crap out of everything until it
was dead. Fun, but not particularly skilful or demanding.
Not any more. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm is going back to the way
it used to be: Tanks are not the aggro-magnets they used to be.
Blizzard's developers want players to actually think a bit more, rather
than just mash buttons. For people who've played the game since the
beginning, this is going to be fairly easy to adjust to: it's a case of
relearning old habits. For those who didn't... oh boy. You'll need to
change your habits and learn the new way of doing things quickly, or
you're going to be a liability to your team-mates, and at worst get
everyone killed.
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And that's not the only change. There's an additional layer of
challenge -- and this is something that old players will recognise. Many
"pulls" in the new dungeons (groups of monsters that you need to
overcome) cannot be bested by simply blasting them with AOE effects, as
they could in Lich King dungeons. Indeed, if you try to do that, the
monsters will run riot and kill everyone. Instead, you have to be
strategic and use crowd control effects - spells and effects that
temporarily disable a monster - and kill the monsters selectively in the
right order. Which means your team has to be organised, on point, and
thinking clearly.
I personally love these changes. They make dungeons fun and
challenging in a good way, requiring skill and coordination, and a
modicum of strategy. However, there is a down side, which will clearly
be apparent to those who use the dungeon finder to PUG (that means
tackle a dungeon with a pick-up group - a random group people using the
in-game matching system).
Because the game does require more co-ordination and thought, you'll
probably see a lot of initial problems with people who haven't adjusted
to the new system of doing things. Or people not listening and doing the
wrong thing. The days of simply button-mashing through dungeons are now
over, and anyone using those old tactics will cause nothing but
problems.
And where there are problems there will be arguments, nerd-raging,
kicking and people quitting in frustration. I think things will settle
down as players get to grips with the new system, but initially I will
advise caution, and suggest that if you're going to try to PUG, to be
patient and prepare to work with people to help them.
Of course, your mileage may vary, but I've definitely already seen a
few explosive situations occur due to people continually breaking CC,
healers running out of mana because they're healing DPS characters who
can't throttle their damage, DPS going AOE crazy and wiping the group,
and so on. Put it this way: I'm dungeon-crawling with trusted friends
only for a few months...
World of Tanks is a game that
is quite a bit more "tanks" than "world", which I mean as criticism of
the marketing, not the gameplay. It is a "lobby" game, where you queue
for battles, and are dumped into a random map alongside random players
to blow each other up. Battles are short (generally 5-10 minutes),
visually appealing, and require a mix of tactics, situational awareness,
player skill, reflexes, and teamwork.
Each player controls a tank, hence the name, and there are a lot of
tanks: 10 tiers, several nationalities, and multiple size categories
(light, medium, heavy, and so on). You begin, of course, with very weak
"Tier 1" tanks, and as you gain experience and money, you upgrade to
progressively higher tiers. You can own multiple tanks, but you pilot
only one at a time in battle.
World of Tanks bills itself as an MMORPG, but it really isn't, and if
you want "EVE Online, but you're a tank instead of a spaceship," that's
not what this is. Some elements may seem familiar: You gain experience
with lower-tier tanks, which you then spend to upgrade your tank with
better weapons and gear, and also to unlock the next highest tier. The
crew of your tank has a set of skills which can improve over time. You
can equip consumable gear to repair damage or restore an injured
crewmember to health.
Quibbles over categories aside, is it fun? Yes. It's very easy to get
into and start playing; the game design places playability and balance
over strict historical accuracy. There's a simple WASD control scheme
for moving, with the turret aimed via mouse motion, and a few number-key
commands to swap ammunition types or use a repair kit.
World of Tanks does not ignore basic physics or tank performance
limitations; the physics engine does an excellent job of conveying a
real sense of bulk and mass. In a reversal of a common trope in other
games, small ground elements (fences, trees, parked cars) are trivially
run over and crushed, while even relatively slight inclines can stymie
your vehicle, forcing you to take an alternate route.
World of Tanks: basic gameplay
Basic gameplay in World of Tanks is: Pick a random battle, wait 30
seconds or so, then roll out! Unless you are in a Tank Company (guild)
or Platoon (group of friends), you'll be mixed in with 14 or so random
strangers on one team, to battle an equal number on the other, all in
tanks roughly close in power to your own. There are no defined "sides"
in World of Tanks, so each team will mix tanks from all nationalities.
The map selected is random as well, and the maps range from wide-open
spaces to narrow mountain passes and city streets. Learning each map's
unique features is part of mastering the game.
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It's very easy to die in World of Tanks. Being one-shotted by someone
you didn't even see is commonplace. It's rare, in my experience, to
have more than 2-3 survivors of any battle, on either side. While you
have to pay a small amount to repair your damaged tank, you don't lose
anything except time. You must wait until a battle is over to use the
tank again, though you can join a different battle in a different tank.
If there's a flaw here, it's that battles can get repetitive,
although the human factor (there are no computer-controlled opponents)
helps minimize that. After you research Tier 4 tanks, two new battle
types open up. There are 33 different maps, as well, and maps are
constantly being edited and improved. In addition, new tank lines are
being added, further increasing variety.
While it's hard to generalize from a small sample, I found the
community in World of Tanks to be generally positive. Only rarely did I
encounter the kind of behavior that is too often a hallmark of online
gaming. This may be due to the game design: Since the teams are random,
there's a strong awareness that the guy you're shooting at now could be
on your side in the next match. On the other hand, the higher you rise
in the game, the higher the penalties (repair costs) for losing become,
so this may change at higher tiers of play.
World of Tanks is free to play, but there is a cash shop. While it's
not absolutely required to play, many tanks are "premium only", as is
better ammo, some upgrades and equipment, and so on. Being a "premium
member" also increases your experience gain. Many things which can be
bought with credits (currency you earn in game) are much easier to
acquire if you pay with "gold" (purchased with real cash). The
temptation to spend a few bucks for better ammunition, faster experience
gain, or the ability to transfer experience earned on one type of tank
to another is very strong.
Like many games, World of Tanks can be modded. The visual changes
from a mod are only visible to the player who has it installed, but it
can certainly make play more interesting and screen shots more amusing.
There's a vibrant modding community and a huge assortment of skins to
download, ranging from changes to add historical markings to bright pink
pony tanks.
Despite the hype and mountains of cash made by Diablo III, the finished game left
a lot of people tasting brimstone and ashes. Between the Auction House,
online DRM requirements, hacked accounts and host of other
disappointments, Blizzard's bruiser broke as many hearts as it won. But
there are other fish in the sea. Runic Entertainment's first crack at
the action RPG designer-drug formula resulted in the enormously
successful Torchlight, a game that had it all, assuming you like to play
underground and alone. That little caveat cost Torchlight dearly among
ARPG enthusiasts; the hardcore crowd views multiplayer as essential.
Runic has been eager to address this shortcoming, but those good
intentions didn't stop the sequel from shipping late. Fortunately,
Torchlight II delivers. It's so good, it should be required playing for
Blizzard employees.
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This time around you're given access to four starting classes and
your choice of gender, along with your pick of pet out of a choice of
six. The double-fisted Berserker replaces the tanklike Destroyer and the
ranged elemental attack specialist Embermage steps in for the
Alchemist, but two new classes are featured as well. The Engineer brings
a bit of the dwarven tinker to Torchlight, and Outlanders round out the
package with mix of guns and speed. Both of these classes have minions
available in later levels, spicing up character builds considerably.
To sample a new class, I picked a red-haired, shotgun-wielding
Outlander named Gracie for my playthrough and I paired her off with a
ferret named Rommel. The shells started flying, and I found myself
falling in love with the both of them inside of 10 minutes. Credit
Runic's character design, which trades high resolution-textures and
polygon counts for distinctive strong lines and bolder colors matched
with an exaggerated cartoon animation style, a technique used in the
original game with equally successful results The world is also
expanded, with several towns to visit and overland areas to explore. It
adds more of an open-world flavor to the proceedings, although you won't
mistake it for Skyrim.
That design pays off handsomely with system requirements as well,
which are low enough for virtually any modern computer to handle. Even
with options cranked to the max and v-sync enabled, framerates were
largely monitor-limited on desktop computers using discrete graphics
cards. Integrated graphics didn't fare much worse, making Torchlight II
an ideal laptop game (although if you're going to be on the road a lot,
you'll probably want to skip the Steam version and buy directly from
Runic to avoid Steam's offline-mode shenanigans.
Long-awaited co-op LAN and internet gameplay options are
well-implemented here, with online servers handling matchmaking and
lobby chores while the game itself is hosted on one or more user's
systems instead of the centralized MMO-style approach. Lag and latency
issues are largely nonexistent beyond actual connection problems, making
for a smooth experience overall.
Price is another factor in Torchlight II's success. There's a lot
here for $20, but it's what's missing that really seals the deal. There
are no scheduled down times every week, no legions of money-grubbing
hackers sniffing for cracks in the wall, no casino-house mentality from
the publisher. You're the one playing the game, rather than the game
playing you. It depresses me how retro this feels.
The other side of the coin is a nagging feeling that this is less
Torchlight II than Torchlight Deluxe. The new features -- added classes
and pets, diverse locales and multiplayer additions, are usually
included from the start in modern ARPGs. Engine enhancements are sparse
to nonexistent, and with such generous headroom, much potential goes
untapped.
Personal computers have
been around long enough to become a part of our history and shared
social consciousness. As time marches on and older hardware dies,
emulation is often the only way to experience these orphaned systems
again. Amiga has been mourned more than most. Emulators are tricky
business, however. Mastering and maintaining them can sap enough
enthusiasm that you're left wondering why you bothered. Cloanto
carefully sized up this common problem when putting together its Amiga
Forever package, and the results are impressive. We looked at the €30
Plus edition (€10 Value and €50 Premium editions also available).
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Rather than reinvent the wheel, Cloanto (which also makes the C64
Forever Commodore 64 emulator) uses the excellent WinUAE as the
technical engine behind its Amiga suite. The main bulk of the package is
a sizable collection of legal ROM images, games, classic demoscene
releases, interviews, and more. An attractively designed multi-tabbed
window, which resembles a media library more than an emulation
interface, presents the information. There's a ton of Amiga-related
stuff at your fingertips from the moment you install. Ratings,
screenshots, and descriptive texts appear for each of the dozens of
entries, and full social media support means everyone on Twitter will
know when you're eaten by the giant ants.
Tinkering types and Amiga purists will be pleased to know that all
the deeper settings are still available via the Tools menu (accessible
during emulation using WinUAE's default F12 hotkey). That said, there's
little to bother with here as Amiga Forever has most useful options
preconfigured or easily selectable via icons placed around the emulation
window itself. Full-screen controls, input devices, save states and
more are all accessible here. Links to legal download repositories for
many lost Amiga classics are built into the software, so when you tire
of the included content, finding more isn't difficult. All standard
Amiga formats are supported, so your own library of converted disks can
be used as well. It's all designed to be as painless as possible, and it
works.
The DVD edition has a number of interviews that are must-watch for
Amiga aficionados. In addition to some early promotional materials, the
famous "Deathbed Vigil" is included on the disc, in which Dave Haynie
(the creator of the Amiga 3000) documents the fall of Commodore on video
as it happens around him. This is riveting stuff for those wondering
what was going on behind the scenes at the time. More material of this
nature would be welcome, as this is the content that sets Cloanto's
offering apart from other, more technically oriented packages. The
gallery area in particular could use some back-issue libraries of
Amiga-oriented publications such as .info magazine and similar
materials.
