Grand Theft Avatar Online

Dakka dakka dakka!

I've been playing a Lot of Grand Theft Auto V lately, because it is an impressive cinematic game.  Three characters fighting together to get their ways in life without having to get screwed over by some other asshole.  Its fantastic, it's emotional, and it is more entertaining than a bag full of cats.

But it doesn't stop there.  GTAV also has an online mode which is, for want of a better description, an MMO set in Los Santos (The setting of GTAV).

In this Online mode you can do any number of things, from Holding up a convenience store, to joining a Death Match against a bunch of strangers, to racing your friends around the city, to organising heists for either the sake of hilarity or to actually attain a profit (Though those are yet to be properly implemented).

My only worry, and it's admittedly a silly worry, is that players would get bored of the city of Los Santos.  There's thousands of square miles of environment you can explore, I'm still discovering/rediscovering regions, but eventually one does run out of things to do.

So what can you do?  Why not add another city?  The setting has several environments as it is all set within San Andreas, all of which have their inconsistencies between 2D, 3D and HD universes, but that's Rockstar's problem.  That's the potential of a GTAV/GTAOnline Expansion, either reinventing old cities, or inventing new ones.  The potential is all up to the developers.

The System is what's fun though.  A very well designed Third Person game with Role Play Elements, along with a very good Vehicular system (covering anything from a push bike to a personal jet).

It's a tried and true method for a good number of years, and it makes for a really fun setup for GTA Online.

But as my train of thought moved on, it careened over to the Xbox All-stars MMO I rambled on about a few months back.

This would be a perfect setup for exactly that.  To have different regions that mimic exclusive Xbox games (or games they can get the rights to) which your player, represented by your Xbox Avatar, can roam about causing havoc or performing feats they get from whatever they have equipped, around areas that would appear in a demo levels of respective games.

I would love to jump out of a Borderlands Bandit Technical, wearing my Crysis Nanosuit, holding a Gears of War Lancer and killing a Halo Elite in a Doom Facility.  Just as an example.

Likely, Licensing and such won't allow Xbox to get that, but it's still an idea they can run with just to get some cool milage out of those charming little Mini-Me's.

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Yes, it was that big.

The more I think about it, the more I wish it were true that my little Avatar would have a professionally made world available to him to roam, and shoot, and interact.  I say professionally because there are a number of Indie games that use Avatars, and they all seem very... Low budget.

I continue to play GTA Online, driving about in whatever spiffy car I've sexed up, finishing missions, or jacking Armoured Trucks, or being chased down by the Los Santos Rozzers, and I keep wondering other things that would make an Avatar GTA interesting.

Like all the weapons would be based on NERF guns, just so that kiddies would be able to join in on the fun without being subjected to the gore of a spurting headshot.  And with that you can customise them, from an extended clip or an underslung grenade launcher, to something like an elemental effect added to your ammunition.  Or get random drops and just improve on them from there.  It'll depend on how you go about it, and whether the character you develop matches your play style.

Skill trees could be massive, just starting off with a handful of straightforward options, and expanding out more and more making characters that much more unique for each persons playstyle.

Enemies could be based off of Xbox exclusives, throwing things like Halo Elites and Gears of War Locust into the mix.  Or have mock characters of other company personifications, like the Wiis "Mii"s and have them attack in droves against environments, turning them into their own versions of said exclusives and turning them against the avatars.  Better yet, have a Zomb-ii mission such as being placed in the Xbox HQ and have to make defences in there to stop the hordes of zomb-ii's.

Then take the piss out of themselves and fly up to a mothership designed on the original xbox, maybe fly around in fighters that are based on the original controllers.  Or do a mothership dungeon crawl and fight a raid boss.

The ideas are pretty endless.

Bubble and Hearth, the breakfast of Paladins

Im opposed to getting myself involved in collectible card games.  Its not that I don't like the games, or that I consider them a massive waste of time, it's that I don't want to get addicted in searching hundreds of cards for a real game changer and suddenly find that it's obsolete the next year I play, while I will also have stack after stack of cards that will do nothing but either create a different deck, which I'm not opposed to, but will create replicas of decks whcih i can't fob off for whatever reason.

However as a digital version, it makes me more interested.  Mixing it in with an IP that I enjoy, that makes me keen.  Lo and Behold, Hearthstone: The Warcraft Collectible Card Game.

Immediately, I knew that I wanted to follow in the footsteps of my World of Warcraft career: Warrior.  So I jumped on the opportunity taking the role of 'Garrosh Hellscream', Mr Ivory Shoulders himself.

Since then... i haven't had much success.  But I knock that down to not much experience in deckbuilding.  On practice matches, I just haven't beaten anyone else, and I find that a little embarrassing.  But they're tricky, ya know?  Full of tricks and surprises, they are!  And not to mention the organisation between utility and bloody minions that do X, Y and Z.

The problem with it is that it makes me want to play World of Warcraft.  I had a modicum of love for it, even though I couldn't play it for more than about a month at a time because I found it rather tedious and cold.  It is still one of my favourite fantasy themes out there.

But i can't play it because it's too expensive, and it's a complaint I've had for years.  Ever since it was first announced in fact.  And while I could happily go back to play Warcraft III, I've had my fun with that.  The game has decided to take on a new style of RPG, and I have said several times that I would enjoy them continue with that... with a not so profitable method.

Thats my problem with MMO games.  While I can appreciate that having a subscription means you're supporting the developers to furthur expand said universe, that's not what I see a game as.  It's not a business method, it's an experience.

That was why I was ecstatic when I came across the Business Model page (http://www.wildstar-online.com/en/game/features/business-model/) of Wildstar, which shows a detailed and easy to explain Free-to-play method.

Which quite simply translated means you pay your subscription using IN GAME MONEY.

To be fair, that can potentially be quite a drain on such characters. The potential for players to extort those who want to depend on C.R.E.D.D. (Sounds like it should have a helmet and multi-purpose pistol) will be ridiculous, but I'm sure there is a method in the madness therein.  You also need to find people who are happy to trade real money for in-game benefit, and funny enough it's substantially more expensive than it is to pay for a subscription.

Actually, I'm starting to get a bit disillusioned by it all now.

One day I want to get into Wildstar.  Seriously, it looks like World of Warcraft had wild monkey sex with Ratchet and Clank.  And those are two games that I really like!  Dodgerolling, strafing, attacking, combo-ing, etc etc etc...  I could be a Bilby Gunmage!  That's just awesome!  I can continue to do the Aussie thing in game!

What was I talking about?  Oh yeah, Hearthstone is pretty fun for a Digital CCG that you can either flog money at to get good cards, or just do quests which give you Gold which you can use for gametypes or for more card packs.  And whatever card bloat you have, you can disenchant them into Arcane Dust and make other cards for a cost.  That's pretty nifty.  Too bad you can't do that with Magic the Gathering.  You just make paper mâché houses for tabletop games.

Gaming Over Time

I mentioned a couple of posts ago about how I have been playing Cow Clicker games over the past year on Tablets, and I've continued to do so playing different games in that time, amongst other time consuming games like Jetpack Joyride and Sudoku 2. (It's no different to Sudoku 1 except that it looks spiffier)

What's interesting is how I've continued to play them.  Since I've been here, I've loaded up the tablet with Clash of Clans, Samurai Siege, and Boom Beach and continued to level up and maintain my bases, continuing to build upon and learn strategies to take on various bases while treating my own like a Lamb Roast, letting it sit in the oven, hours at a time, and basting it occasionally.  That's how these games work.

Same goes with Skylanders Lost Islands and Tiny Village, though they lack the fun of competing against people and their ingenious bases.  You just go ahead and check on it and come back every few hours, possibly more, to collect and repeat.

Jetpack Joyride does the same now, a bonus every day where you ride S.A.M. (the Strong Arm Machine) and you collect money more frequently while batting off Rockets that trick you into missing, and in the main menu a countdown is shown so you know that at 8pm, S.A.M. is ready to ride again.

It just threw me for a loop the amount of hours I've spent waiting on these games over the past couple of months.  I would wager that once I've upgraded and collected everything, i would have spent more time waiting on it than I've played Borderlands 2, which is over 600 hours as it is.

And that's just madness.

I've had it with these motha****ing shake-cams in my motha****ing fight scenes

I wanted to show Jenny the first Captain America film before we went to see it, but there is some sort of complication at the Library which was, and still is, stopping that plan.  But since it's apparently the last week of showing, we caved in and went anyway and I filled in Jenny on the missing info.

The next day, it became available. Annoying.

The beginning of the movie was fun.  That entire scene on the freight boat?  Landing on it, knocking out or throwing overboard all the henchmen?  Very fun.  But the boss fight is where it began pissing me off.

The scene was set: Captain America in a hand to hand fight with Georges Batroc.  It was set like a Fighting Game, where they essentially are fighting on a 2D plane against each other.  But then the Director fucked it up by hiring Michael J Fox to hold the camera for every fight scene throughout the movie.

Is it really too much to ask for a steady camera during a fight scene?  I know it's too much to ask for actors to do a perfect fight scene, it's inefficient spending potentially days trying to get one perfect take of choreographed action.  Nobody is perfect, and that's fair.  But this fucking shake cam is killing me.  I want to see the blows, the moves, the throws, the weapon tricks, everything, without getting a fucking headache trying to follow it.

I'll move onto the writing now.  The first film was fantastic.  Every line was spot on, either motivating you or making you laugh.  There was so little of that.  There were badass moments, and a funny casual conversation between the Cap and Kristen Stew-I mean- Black Widow about getting him a date, but otherwise the movie took itself far too seriously.  C'mon, get some more smart ass comments in there.  Don't constantly promote his Badass features, like his inability to let water shoot up his arse when he pencil dives from a few hundred feet.

The story however was very cool, and I really wish I had been watching Agents of SHIELD to keep up with the "Hail Hydra" shenanigans, moreso because of my friend Lucas who forfeited a "You told me so" when it began gaining traction.

The few twists that were in there were great.  I went "Holy Shit" when they revealed Zola.  I also breathed a sigh of relief when they did the sensible thing and just let him continue talking after the Cap punched out a Monitor, instead of letting the whole system just pack it up, as Hollywood find wanting.

Actually, that's what I would say is wrong with the film.  It's a Hollywood Film, not a Marvel film.  They did this, they did that, and made it like a really long sidestory huge action episode of Agents of SHIELD, rather than a Captain America Film.

All hail the saviour of Pandora: Kenny Baker

I have stepped off a bus and listened to a god; wrangled a calamari, and his son, both of gargantuan proportions into submission; fire-fought with a medically deranged "twin brother" and his lumbering undead minions; undermined the apocalyptic plans of a lackadaisical General under the orders of his toddling superior; and halted the robotic revolution of the century dead in its tracks.

I have brought a tyrant and his corporation defiantly to their knees, and with great pleasure and satisfaction; stared down and destroyed a molten Kaiju; scoured a pirate filled desert and battled ancient monsters for a Legendary Treasure Trove; cut down to size a steroid pumped Coward and his Prehistoric Robot; observed the tragic and pathetic fall and tumble of a mad attention seeking Scientist and the experimental resurrection of his lunatic boss; and saved a Diamond Queen from a Handsome Evil Wizard and his Dragons.

I have married and subsequently killed dimwitted Psychopaths with rifles that loose rocket propelled bullets; prepared for dinner an unbeatable Monstrous Turkey with Caustic Revolvers; melted Snowmen with a Sub Machine Gun that unleashed a seemingly unending clip of Electricity; and ignited hoards of zombies and Pumpkin Headed Bosses with incendiary rockets utilising strange alien technology.

These are the adventurous highlights of Borderlands.  I have experienced these stories several times over, using unique skills such as dropping Turrets that, while chunking away with it's machine gun, pump rockets into whatever corporate soldiers that happen to be in range; turn invisible and either diluting time or distracting enemies with a hologram before surprising canines with cloaca's for mouths with a surprise attack; punch the ever loving shit out of giant arthropods with hardened exoskeletons, or carve them in half with a buzz axe that I keep hitting myself with; unleash an elementally charged hawk or your very own personal robot to deal with more mindless drone bots; suspend Thieves in a paralytic stasis to await their demise; or simply pulled out a second gun and double fist everything.

This year, I will be following two directions.  The future will take me after Borderlands 2 through episodes of "Tales from the Borderlands."  Two characters, neither of whom are Vault Hunters, a first of the setting, will have an adventure of some sort across the region of Pandora which houses all of our heroes.

Then I will be sent back in time in "Borderlands the Pre-Sequel".  And not only that... I'll be sent to the fucking Moon.

Four new characters will accompany me.  Athena the Gladiator, known for being a powerful Assassin of a now defunct Corporate Military and helping the Vault Hunters in hammering the final stake into that Business' Heart, will be joining the fight using a specially designed Captain America Shield, absorbing attacks and then throwing it back into their face.

Nisha the Lawbringer, very easily described as a Wild West Cowgirl, becomes in Borderlands 2 a Sheriff of a small, somewhat deserted town, called Lynchwood, while dating the Tyrant of Tyrants, Handsome Jack.

Wilhelm the Enforcer, commonly known in Borderlands 2 as the personal Bionic Bodyguard of Handsome Jack, famous for having almost defeated the Original Vault Hunters (Roland, Maya, Mordecai and Brick), who is later defeated amongst the wreckage of a train, brought down by an adorable explosive fetishist.

And, known as the most annoying, noisy, and frustrating character of the series, Claptrap the Fragtrap.  Once a Doorman for anyone stepping off a bus, he brought about an entire army of his own kind, attempting to overpower the subjugation they were all forced to, only to be put back down to size as the only member of his kind, and waiting his vengeance to be fulfilled with the association of more Vault Hunters.

These will be the Soldiers of mass murder on the Moon of Pandora.  They will be freezing everyone with Lasers while utilising their Oxygen tanks for further shenanigans, from double jumping to butt stomping your favourite ice sculpture.

This is going to be a fantastic year of Mass Murder.

Continuing to Cry about Crysis

LIKE A BOSS

Just the other day i was looking at Kotaku.com.au and a post came up about a guy who decided to take the highest resolution he could for Crysis 3 and take pretty photos, which was difficult in that he had to change the resolution mid-game to take his photo, because it runs at 2 frames per second while it's at 8k ratio.

And they were stunning photos of the most picturesque scenes, like the Dam.  The Dam is one of the most beautiful levels and it's pretty fun to boot, and the majority of those said photos are from that very level.

But it still makes me cry.  The game still feels a little wasted for opportunity, simply because they have New York in a Dome and they didn't maximise it.  Yes there were big levels, but that's not enough.  Sure you may have been running through th dry banks of Manhattan to support your allies, or driving across desert ruins of suburbs, but that's just not the same.

I remembered a game called Halo: ODST.  It was a spin off from the normal series, much like Halo: Reach, but instead of a Spartan you're an ODST soldier.  The hardcore maniacs of Soldiers.  They die into the fight with piss and vinegar in their veins.

The main story follows the player as he wanders around the open streets and buildings of the city of Mombasaa encountering different events and campaign stories, and fighting groups of enemies while playing a stealth game.

It's fun and while it still has some sections to improve it still executed a good idea.  An idea that Crysis could have executed too if they weren't simply in it for the dough and Multiplayer.

"What do we want?" "MONSTERPOCALYPSE!"

I miss Monsterpocalypse.  It has been such a long time since I've played it.  Years even, and I found my collection before I came to the US and it brought back memories.

I shared it amongst five of my friends, all taking an alignment each and chipping in on a box and splitting it six ways. Then games went wild, buildings destroyed and Carnidons screaming in terror and pain from the sidelines as they wish they were being played.

But the game kinda... ceased.  It finished off the fifth wave, and that was all since, apart from the occasional special figure at an event.

There were a few problems with the business model that a couple of my friends found were a problem. Whether they contributed to it, I don't know, but the fact that it acted like a collectible game at such a high price rubbed most of us the wrong way.

Its been a good two years since, and I've had some jonesing for Monsterpocalypse since I got here.  I left my stuff at home, and honestly I do not want to go about collecting it again since I do not have the income for it.  But I've been playing a lot of our tablet lately and it got me to thinking.

Why not make a video game out of it?  Privateer Press are already doing the Warmachine Video Game, so why not do a Kickstarter of a Monpoc game?  Earn your Hyper forms by attaining goals, form up your units and organise them on the battlefield, create animations of a Carnidon exploding from a Tank Cannon.  Form up online leagues and conquer countries from coast to coast, and giving buildings their own skins based on the current country too.

It'd be fantastic.  But alas, just another pipe dream, and something that I came up with while playing an iPad and thinking of cool games that would be played by streaming through Apple TV.  Or on a WiiU.