Riamus
Reviews
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II - The Sith Lords (Windows)
A sequel with many improvements
The Good
This sequel may at first seem to be little different from the original. In fact, looking at the game graphically or based on gameplay, it is the same game but with a different story.
However, as you progress into the game, you notice many new features not found in the original. Although you could upgrade items with your workbench in the original, now you can also break items down and create your own items to use for upgrading weapons and armor. This can allow you to create much better equipment. There is also a lab station now, which lets you breakdown and create medpacks, stims, grenades, and mines. If you use these regularly, you won't have to worry about running out in the sequel. If you don't, then you'll be like me and never touch the lab station. Even so, it's a good addition.
Another useful thing in the game is that some of your party members will create items for you (security spikes, grenades, etc) and your T3 unit will let you upgrade items anywhere you want if it's in your party.
The number of upgrades available for your weapons and armor have been increased greatly, which lets you have a wider variety of choices. There are also many more weapon and armor types available in the game.
As with the previous game, communicating with your party members lets you gain various things. However, in this sequel, this is taken much farther. Talking to your party can gain them more abilities and powers (even create a dual-class jedi by taking on an apprentice). You can also improve your powers greatly by speaking to your party members... everything from increased force points to new force powers to ability to heal your T3 droid. It is strongly recommended that you talk to all your party members often.
Being a lightsaber user, I also am happy to see more color choices in the game. Unfortunately, some of the colors are not very different visually. Such as viridian being almost the same as green, and orange being almost the same as red. Still, more choice in color is great to see.
By taking the time to improve your light or dark side, you will get stat increases, such as +3 Wisdom. You can also get a nice stat increase by finding and using a lightsaber upgrade gem that's tuned to your own being... depending on if you're light or dark side and what class you are, you will gain some very powerful stat increases that get better as you level up.
I like how the game lets you learn about the original game with history and flashbacks. It's a good reminder of what happened in the original and can help people who have not played the original to better understand what led up to where this game is in history.
Dialogs are also interesting in this game. The programmers definitely had a sense of humor when coming up with the interactions between you and your party members and between themselves. All your droids tend to dislike each other and have various issues you'll end up seeing in cutscenes. Mira has some very interesting comments regarding you and your other female companions. Kreia just strives to get you to hate her and also has a very surprising comment regarding you and the handmaiden... which, in turn, gives you a dialog choice that is very funny to hear. The interactions start to bring you to the point seen in games like Planescape: Torment, where the characters really have a personality of their own and aren't just drones as found in most games.
Swoop racing has been improved to include changes in elevation, traffic, and mines. This can make it more challenging than the original races.
There are many lightsaber forms that affect not only how well you battle, but also change the movements you make while fighting. This makes the battles look much more interesting.
The Bad
The worst part of the game are the bugs. Watching the game crash frequently, having issues where swoop races that are completed seem to think you crashed and don't reward you, having party pathfinding poorly handled, having your character suddenly jump (not force jump, this is a bug) halfway across the screen ... often in the wrong direction... these make the game frustrating at times.
Although I understand not giving you a lightsaber at the start of the game, you don't end up getting one for a long time. Although the game is much longer than the original, the time to get your first lightsaber shouldn't be any longer than in the original. Most people, I think, prefer using a lightsaber in a Star Wars game and having to wait is annoying. There are also fewer drops for lightsabers. In the original, I ended up with over 20 red gems... in this one, I'm closer to 5. Granted, you don't need that many, but there just really aren't many colors to choose from for quite awhile into the game unless you start out at Dantooine.
There are many places where you must do everything when you're there, or you won't ever get the chance. Many places will not allow you to return to them after you leave. Although this can help with the plot, it can be annoying when you can't open something because of low skill and then you can't return with higher skill to open it.
As with the previous game, the plot is very fragmented. Each planet has its own story which supposedly all works together into one larger plot. However, there really isn't very much combining of the plots into one larger plot. About the only real thing combining the planets is the need to get all the Jedi Masters together. In most cases, if you complete everything on one planet, you never have to return. There's no comment about how you helped to restore a government or helped to get the fuel source for Telos...
The Bottom Line
If you liked the first game, you'll love this one. The new features really make the game an improvement over the first, even though the gameplay isn't changed. You definitely need to play the original first, as this game builds off the original a lot. If you're looking for cutting edge graphics, weren't a fan of the original game, or just don't like Star Wars, then this game isn't for you.
By Riamus on February 12, 2005
World of WarCraft (Windows)
Taking MMORPGs to a new level
The Good
This is, by far, the best MMORPG currently out there and you hear many in the game saying the same when comparing to all other MMORPGs they have played. Although the graphics may not compare with ones like FFIX, they fit the game universe perfectly. The somewhat cartoony look to various creatures and characters is what you would expect in a Warcraft game.
The game is set up in such a way that quests will build your character up to a good level, then move you on to the next area, and so on. You have the choice of not doing all of the quests, but doing so reveals the story and plot in the game as well as helping to keep your level where it should be for the area you are in.
Professions in the game are great, though not perfect. Depending on your character's class, you pick from the various professions to select 2 that are going to be useful either to you or to your guild members... or just so you can make money off them. The professions can help you to have better equipment than you usually can find for your character, though not always. If you keep your professions' skills increasing, you can make some powerful items. And the minor professions -- fishing, cooking, and first aid -- help to give you some more to do. Fishing, in particular, can be very useful. Besides getting fish that can be used for health, feeding pets, or cooking to make even better, you can also catch equipment. Sometimes this can gain you some excellent equipment.
The enemies and varied considerably in the game. No matter how long you play the game, as long as you aren't staying in the same area, you will find many new enemies to fight that look vastly different from previous ones. Granted, spiders look similar, wolves look similar, etc... but you also find many enemies that look completely different.
Each race and class have special abilities and skills that define them. These help you to create your own unique character that is different from everyone else's characters. And the vast amount of equipment available also help to change how your character looks compared to everyone else. Once you're out of the beginner areas, you don't usually see two characters who look the same.
The emotes included with the game are fun to mess around with when you want a break from killing. The best of which is dancing. Each race and gender have their own unique dancing style... from the human female doing the macarena, to the undead male appearing to be a hard rock star. Getting many races and genders together to dance can make for a very interesting display.
The world is absolutely huge. It would take a very long time to see the entire world, if you wanted to try and do so. It can be deceiving when you look at the default map, because it seems small. However, when you zoom it out all the way, you notice how huge it really is. I have no idea really how big the world is, but I would estimate it to be over 500 miles x 500 miles (or 250,000 square miles)... and it may be even larger than that. For a game world, that is ridiculously huge! And that size helps keep areas from being too filled up with people.
Because of the number of classes and races available and because people want to try them all out and also be on multiple servers, the game allows you to have 10 characters on any one server, with a maximum of 50 characters. For most people, this basically allows you to have as many as you want, since most don't want more than 50 characters.
The Bad
If you have a problem, GMs take a very long time to respond. This is perhaps the worst issue with the game as it is still new and problems can happen more frequently now than they will in months to come.
Some quests require you to loot, or kill, a specific enemy, and when you have 20 people trying to complete the quest, this can take forever before you manage to get the kill so you can loot it. You can group with others and that can help, but it still can become troublesome.
Lag is an issue in the game, but usually not a huge problem most of the time. When it DOES hit, however, it can be severe. Blizzard is working to correct that and may have it taken care of soon.
The Bottom Line
If you like MMORPGs and don't mind paying some money for monthly access, this game is the best one you'll find. I don't usually play games with monthly fees because it's not worth the cost to keep playing the game. However, this game is so great that, for under $0.50 per day, it's worth the cost. I can actually sit and play the game for 6-8 hours a night, every night... and many play much more than that!
By Riamus on November 27, 2004
Star Wars: Battlefront (Windows)
A game where "single player" is a bot match against the computer
The Good
The graphics are very well done and it features video clips direct from the movies which are nice to see. It's also interesting fighting in all the different locations taken from the movies. And the areas are recreated very well.
It's nice to play as the light and dark sided teams and you have the ability to play in both 1st and 3rd person, which can be nice for fighting.
The number of different units you can play as is great. You won't get bored with playing the same unit all the time.
The rankings at the end of each mission are interesting as they track things such as top "camper" (staying in one place for long periods of time), top deadeye (headshots), and top enemy of the state (kills). You can also see the stats of all bots in the game.
The Bad
Where do I begin? First of all, the most disappointing thing about this game is the format of it for single players. This game is really a multiplayer-only game. If you choose to play single player, you are simply playing a standard multiplayer bot match against the computer rather than against other people. If you die, you just spawn back into the game.
Weapons are limited greatly based on what unit you play. You have a main weapon with very limited ammunition, a secondary weapon with unlimited ammunition (but it recharges slowly), and some form of mine/bomb weapon. You may also have a shield, health packs, etc. If you end up running out of ammo for your main weapon, unless you want the limited weapon power of the blaster weapon that has unlimited ammo, you basically have to just go get yourself killed so you can respawn with more ammo.
AI is sadly lacking in the game. If you go up onto a ledge/balcony/etc and sit there, you can take pot-shots at your enemies as they come along and no one will try to get you. There is no thought of flanking or retreating or anything. Units will often just stand there as you shoot them.
The Bottom Line
If you like Star Wars, you like Bot matches, and you can live with poor AI, this game is definitely for you. The graphics are great and the short clips from the movies are nice to watch.
On the other hand, if you want good AI and a real single player game... find something better.
By Riamus on November 7, 2004
Heretic Kingdoms: The Inquisition (Windows)
Great addition to the RPG genre
The Good
One of the most interesting things in the game is the Dreamworld. This dreamworld has many things to offer you. In most cases, you can avoid even using it if you don't like switching between the two, so that's a nice aspect of the dreamworld. But, using the dreamworld can make the game that much more interesting. The dreamworld is a world where most people cannot enter, but where you can find ghosts and other spirits and demons. Because most creatures and people cannot be in both places at once, it allows you to use it as a hideaway if you find yourself outnumbered without an escape route. Just be careful if you haven't cleared out the area in the dreamworld because you'll likely have a battle as soon as you enter, otherwise. The dreamworld can also allow you to get past those ranged units and pop out into the real world right next to the unit instead of taking damage from the arrows while trying to run over to him. And, a final useful thing about the dreamworld is that you can gain essence (improves attunements) and get hex marks (gives points to improve stats). You can gain those same things by fighting in the real world and the dreamworld, but the bonuses are only available in the dreamworld.
Next, are the attunements. These are spells, skills, and abilities for your character. Unlike most other games, you can only gain these by using various equipment items. This makes it so that you really need to use almost everything you find in the game, for at least a little while, so that you can gain the attunement. Once you have the attunement, you don't need to use the equipment anymore. Using the equipment just lets you learn the attunement. Once learned, it can be used at any time (if you equip it and you have the right requirements met). You have a limited number of active attunement slots in the game, though they will increase as you level up. Whenever you rest, you can choose which attunements to have active. So, as an example, when you know you're going to fight undead, activate the undead killing attunement that will give bonus damage to the undead. And, if you plan to use a Fire weapon, activate an attunement that adds bonus fire damage, and another that has a fire spell. The wide variety of attunements will let you customize your character over and over. And requiring you to use equipment to gain the attunements forces you to not use a single weapon/armor combination all the time as you might in other games.
Another interesting thing about the game is how your character's role is defined. You are an inquisitor whose goal is to stamp out religion of any form. However, it is up to you to decide whether to maintain that goal, or choose to help religion to grow once again. Many games offer the "light" and "dark" paths, but usually your tasks aren't much different. In this game (once you're far enough into the game), your choices create rather distinct paths.
As a note about the latest patch (v1.1), the ability to open more than "bag" inventory at the same time is very useful. This way, you can open two bags and also see your main inventory screen, so you can move things between them easily (or sell things from them or purchase things and place them directly into the bags).
The Bad
Even with the latest patch (v1.1), the game is buggy. Creatures can get stuck in walls and objects, making them easy targets (or difficult-to-hit targets since you might have to be in just the right location to hit them instead of the wall). I also have problems when resting... about 1 in 10 times I rest, the game will crash.
The Bottom Line
If you want an RPG that offers some unique characteristics not found in most other RPGs, try this game out. It's really worth playing and, as a bonus, the graphics are very nice.
By Riamus on October 23, 2004