Undertale: Quick Review

Undertale hit at the perfect time for me. Many games and RPGs are stuck in a rut and teetering on being nothing more than a murder simulator. That may be a harsh look, but some games just point you to an enemy and tell you to kill them, and we as players don’t even question why. This game has been a refreshing look at the genre and the industry as a whole. There are some games that try and change it up, but Undertale hit it at the right time with the right mix of characters and story.

Suffice to say, I love Undertale. The quirky characters, the story that pulls at your heartstrings, the humor that doesn’t take itself seriously. It’s a gaming triple threat that quickly rose to top of my favorite games list.

You play as the unknown protagonist, an androgynous character that falls into a cave and find yourself in Underworld. Your goal is pretty simple; get back to the surface. Dangers lurk inside every crevice and I don’t mean dark caves and endless falls. You’ve found yourself in the land of monsters; long, lost and probably forgotten.

As you make your way through, you’ll come across characters with depth like Sans and Papyrus, a couple of skeleton brothers, or Undyne, the captain of the royal guard, or Alphys, the royal scientist. Each character you meet brings depth to the overall story of the game, even trash mobs that you randomly encounter. Or are you randomly encountering trash mobs? Maybe they are actively seeking you out. Who knows, and that's part of what this game does. Question the status quo.

Credit: PCGamer.com

Are your actions good or bad, and in whose eyes are they good or bad in? Do you attack someone, or leave them be?

The biggest question that this game makes you think is, what kind of person are you?

If you come from a long list of RPGs as I have, then I can do nothing but recommend this game to you. I value what this game has taught me and wish for you to experience the same. Even if you come out of it with no change in perspective, the amount of people it has influenced was worth the chance. I even started a Tumblr of a Charr engineer turned pacifist in Guild Wars 2 because of this game. So give it a try if you haven’t already.

Guild Wars 2: I started a new Tumblr micro-blog

To any Guild Wars 2 junkies, I’ve started up a micro-blog on Tumblr. It’s being wrote through the mind of a character created a while ago that finally got picked back up.

His name is Enki Greasedfur, a Charr engineer. I don’t have Heart of Thorns so I’ll be left out of any new content for now, but I’m enjoying the older stuff still.

You may be asking “Why should I give two hoots or a holler to check out another GW2 blog”, which I should retort “It’s cool. I just wanted to share it with anyone interested. Plus, I’m attempting to play the game as a pacifist.”

Playing as a pacifist is a challenge all in it’s own. I’ve dropped my primary weapon and equipped only a shield. I have two kits to help right now; medkit and elixir gun. I do have some offensive abilities, but I am trying to build out an entire defensive, support character with no attack abilities. This is extremely hard since I feel foolish spraying a blue healing jet at the enemy to heal nearby characters. I can just feel people going “Dude, you know that doesn’t do any damage”. That’s another challenge too.

Turning Enki to a pacifist has been inspired by the recent game Undertale. I love it to bits and it has me wanting more. After reading countless comments about games needing more non-combative abilities, and myself getting kind of tired of mindlessly killing red names, I want to try something new. What games can I play that allows me not to fight. World of Warcraft has a player that reached max level by crafting for months doesn’t sound like my kind of fun. GW2 has lots of events and hearts that has non-violent activities, so I decided to see how far I can take that.

My plan is to write one journal entry each time I play, and then however many thought posts during that session. Since I’ve defaulted my travel to walking, I have plenty of time to come up with those posts. I suppose I’m a glutton for punishment with all these rules, but that is half the fun trying to follow them. I’m using Tumblr because it’s easy and convenient for me to post to while playing.

Lastly, I’m also doing this because I’m trying to work on my storytelling. I feel it’s a bit weak and need to practice at it.

So, without further ado, here is a link to Enki Greasedfur’s Tumblr blog.

Outside Thoughts on Splitting H1Z1

After seeing the news on H1Z1 being split into two games, and reading a fellow blogger who actually played the game, I wanted to throw my thoughts out there as well. The title says outside thoughts, because that’s what I have. I haven’t played or purchased the game, but I am interested in it. I’ve watched some of my favorite YouTubers play it. I’m also glad to see it hit so well with people as Daybreak Games (DBG) is a studio I want to succeed, mostly because I’m an EverQuest fan. With these out of the way, let’s get to the thoughts.

Reading the news did make me angry. Splitting the game into pieces in a time where gamers are already complaining that companies are trying to sell us half a game and then generously selling us the rest with day 1 DLC, expansion packs, cash shops, and console / store exclusive prizes. An industry that looks to be ruled by the motto “greed is good.”

Without jumping to conclusions and grabbing my torch and pitchfork to mob DBG, I wanted to wait it out a bit to see the dust settle a little.

Community segregation concerned me the most, however I came to terms the two communities (Lobby PvPers and Survivalist) don’t naturally mix all that much. I’m sure there is some overlap of players wanting to do both, but the two game types aren’t interchangeable.

Lobby PvP is more about throwing you directly into the action and keeping you there. Quick gains and losses. It’s all about the short game and quickly coming out on top.

Survival is more about starting with scratch and scrounging for that next meal. You slowly gain a more balanced existence, but can never truly stabilize it. It’s all about the long game.

It’s comparing sprinters with marathoners. These two game modes really are different games, so it makes sense to separate their development. However, selling them as two different games is a bit of a scummy move.

This leaves me with some thoughts on H1Z1 and Daybreak Games in general.

Are they hurting for money, or trying to capitalize on a possible hit? Is this going to be the new direction for DBG and will that hurt their EverQuest franchise? Could they have used this opportunity to find common ground and let these communities coexist in the same game instead of segregating them further? Was Eli disappointed with his brother winning the superbowl or was he zoned out that instanced?

Space Engineers: The Early Access

After the high that was Fallout 4 finally wearing down, I’ve been kind of in a slump. It tickled my creativity fancy with settlements, but it wasn’t enough to keep me playing. I still needed to itch that scratch though, and looking through my Steam library, I came back across an old friend; Space Engineers. That’s kind of funny to say because it’s still in Early Access. That’s right, the game is still in development, but there is a lot that’s changed since last I played.

When I first picked up Space Engineers, I had a lot of fun building a space station and coming up with my own ship designs. They were basic and laughable compared to all the masterpieces I saw on the Steam workshop, but they were my creations. Since then, there was a planetary update, along with a plethora of new mods available.

I’ve booted up the game and started on a new Earth-like planet building a base and everything again. Playing with the update and enjoying my favorite past-time, looking up mods.

The game itself is a rather cut and dry sandbox space sim that lets you build stations, ships and structures via a much better Kingdom Heart’s-like gummi ship system. The most used phrase back when I first played it was “Minecraft in space”, which I can say is pretty on-par.

What’s the purpose of this post, you may ask… Somewhat to spread the word and keep an eye on this game if you want to wait till full release. But mostly to share my silly little short-story video.

:)

Screen Share: Fallout 4

It’s been a while since I did my last Screen Share post. So I think I’ll post 3-in-1 today. The subject is Fallout 4, the latest game I’ve been playing. I’ll admit that my want to play has died down considerably, not from a lack of content, but I’ve got out of it pretty much all I wanted so far. The settlements would have been the thing to keep me engaged longer, but I’ve hit too many limits and I’m now waiting for some great mods to come out after the G.E.C.K. is released. May even attempt my own mod for once.

Nightmare Fuel

Going too deep is a risk adventurers take when exploring. Some days they find a hidden treasure, others Nightmare Fuel. Deep underground the Commonwealth lies an abandoned school room where only the dead and forgotten once knew of. I’ve no idea what went on during school hours, but eventually someone had the last laugh...

The Mighty Have Fallen

The Boston city skyline is a beautiful sight, especially during early morning when the mist from the harbor is gently strolling through the streets. As with many large cities of the wasteland, you can see just how the Mighty Have Fallen. Once a sprawling streets of the future, now a rusting pile of the long lost. Perhaps humanity got too big for its breeches, or perhaps we weren't ready for the power we had unlocked. A proverbial Pandora’s Box was holding the secrets of the atom, and we just had to open it.

Ego Trip Down Memory Lane

Ok, ok, I just wanted to show off my Starlight settlement. I really love how it came out, just wish I had more lighting options and had to deal with less generators. Necessity is the mother of invention, and I think my power tower to hold all my generators was a good idea and creates the look of a skyscraper behind the Joe sign.

Either way, I just like taking an Ego Trip Down Memory Lane with this image. My mightiest settlement and yet I still had a lot more I wanted to do. For instance, I wanted to spell my name along the outside of my house up there, and have spotlights aimed at the lions on the corners. Streetlights would have been nice too, along with a better laid out power grid. Oh, a person can dream, can’t they?

Friday Update

Haven’t put anything out on the blog this week. Just want to do a quick post to throw something on there so my blog doesn’t feel like I’m neglecting it.

I’ve been focusing my attention on doing YouTube videos this week. So far I’ve got out two playthrough episodes for Fallout 4 on my own channel, and a video for Geeks and Geeklets about showcasing housing in EverQuest 2. I’ve put a lot of work into those videos.

I’ve also done a vlog video mostly for myself saying that my YouTube channel is now a year old and recording some statistics for myself to review come next year. Sort of taking a snapshot of where I am now to compare later. Will I do better or worse next year? I’ll have to see.

I’ve picked up a new messaging app called Telegram on my phone. I like it because of the stickers and that I can make my own custom sticker set if I want to add more. It reminds me of how Microsoft Messenger used to let me have custom emotes. It also claims it’s secure and won’t advertise on there. I’m not against it making money, but I’m always suspicious when things say free. It says it’s working off a major donation so I’m accepting that for now. The thing works really well and is responsive, so we’ll see how long I keep it.

It’s also been a rough week learning about the deaths of some great people. David Bowie, Alan Rickman and Brian Bedford. They’ll be missed.

I hope anyone who is bored enough to read through this is having a great Friday and enjoy your weekend.

Mechanic Review: Fallout 4 Settlements

Fallout 4 settlement building is a really fun mechanic added to a game that scratches that open world housing itch I’ve had. Well, semi-open world since you are still confined to static plots, but some are pretty darn big.

I’ve played around with the system long enough to feel that I can give an experienced review on the system itself. Show where it shines, where it’s lackluster and where it’s down right frustrating.

To begin, the system has a lot of good intentions in mind and is a wonderful addition to the aging engine Bethesda is using for the Fallout and Elder Scroll series. The use of the word “aging” doesn’t mean “old”, but it does mean some parts of the engine are dated and in need of update or repair. Also by aging is that the engine has so many features that a new engine just wouldn’t have, so I’m glad they are using it and updating it still. Much like an aging MMO, the older ones tend to have a lot more to do. If you’ve been to the Institute, it’s a good analogy of this engine. The part everyone is at is shiny and new, but there is a lot of old technology behind those walls.

Unfortunately with the good intentions, the settlement building does feel like it was tacked on late or later in the development of the game and there are bugs and sections of the mechanic that is woefully underutilised. One of those are the picket fences magazines that add new items to the list of buildable stuff. There are only 5 of these magazines and one wasteland survival guide that adds two silly flamingo lawn ornaments. Between getting the magazines and not getting them doesn’t feel like a lot of difference going through the build list. There are a lot of furniture and items out in the wastes that you just can not build in your settlement without mods. It’s a good start, so I look forward to what modders can do to pick up the slack. I’ve already seen a few good ones on the Fallout 4 Nexus.

Another pitfall is that some settlements offer a lot of room, but you are still held back due to a small settlement size limit and how many settlers can be at one settlement. I understand the limitation to help keep people from slowing their game down, but there should be an option that let’s people who can handle more, or doesn’t care about that, to build and allow more on a settlement. There are some cheats to get around this a little bit. For instance you can drop a lot of guns you are holding on for new settlers on the ground, go in build mode and store each one individually. That should lower the size limit bar and allow you to build more.

Where this system soars is the inherent fact you can build whatever you want with the given objects you have, and within the confines of the settlement build area. Many housing systems of other games are usually within a small house or are pretty static with placement. Here you have an entire area to build many houses and can design inside and out. I’ve spent hours on a bunch of settlements and still have lots of places I haven’t even touched yet. I wish I could do more with my settlers, like set up guard routes or pathing in general. Maybe set up trade with places that aren’t settlements, like Diamond City.

Fallout 4 settlements are heading in a great direction and I honestly can’t wait to see what modders can do with it. If you want to see some of the possibilities you can do with a settlement, I posted a video of what I’ve done in Starlight Drive-In.