'Budget price' review: Arc the Lad 3 (PSX)

Here's another 'budget price' review, this time of an old release, rather than an indie game. Since it's an old game, the scoring is quite forgiving, and concentrates on the fun factor and playability, rather than visuals or audio, as those are obviously outdated by today's standards. Anyhow, here goes.

Arc the Lad 3
Arc the Lad series has always piqued my interest with the fact that it's a TRPG (Tactical Role-Playing Game), in other words, the battles are done on square/grid -based fields, where position and approach matters, unlike in most other Japan -originating RPG's, where the party and enemies are in rows and exchange attacks. Not that I have anything against the traditional setup, but adding a tactical aspect to it is always a bonus in my books.

Arc the Lad games 1-3 were released on the original Playstation, while the next two were released on Playstation2. At the time of typing this review, I'm already working on the next Arc the Lad title, Arc the Lad: Twilight of the Spirits.

Let's start with the story...
The story in Arc the Lad series continues, and at least in case of the first three games, some characters appear in multiple games. The main adversary most of the time seems to be the Evil One, who is about to be resurrected. The classic way of banishing the Evil One seems to be sealing it inside a magical ark, but other methods have been applied as well. To not spoil everything, I'll let you speculate what the case is this time.

In this part of the Arc the Lad story, the world is recovering from The Great Disaster that happened in the previous title. Much of the world is in ruin, but a handful of towns on various continents have survived, and are trying to rebuild the society again. Some groups are researching the lost technologies, others getting rid of monsters and bandits that are still plentiful in all areas.

Alec, the main protagonist, along with his extremely annoying friend Lutz are living a peaceful life in a village on a relatively small island. However, one day bandits raid the village, and while the villagers are being helf captive while the bandits loot the village, Alec and Lutz manage to sneak out to call for help. In this case, the only help they could rely on is the international Hunter Guild. Hunters are people that take on almost any kind of work, mostly specializing in monster extermination and bandit bashing. Our duo finds their way to a nearby guild, and hires a hunter to take down the bandits, which he does in matter of seconds upon reaching the village. Alec, impressed by the hunter, now wants to be one too. He decides to leave the village and become a hunter. Lutz insists to tag along, and off they go. To become a hunter, one must pass a test at the guild, which is basically the first task ahead.

On a mission
Once Alec receives his hunter's crest and is officially in business, he starts to take on jobs at the guild. Unfortunately for all you battle enthusiasts, half the jobs are basically about running errands to people and attempting to complete mini-games. While not all of these need to be accepted, some of them may have unexpected rewards in form of items or weapons.

In addition to jobs, each guild has six 'wanted monster' posters up, and these monsters can be hunted down in nearby locations for extra cash and experience. These are completely optional, and I personally think that they should be skipped, should you want future battles to be challenging. You'll level up plenty while searching for these monsters.

Once enough missions have been completed on a continent, special guild jobs become available. These jobs, upon completion, or for the job itself, grant transportation to a new continent. Along the way new people tag along Alec's group, up to a total of 7 characters, of which one is optional. Occasionally you get special guest characters, from previous Arc the Lad games to temporarily join. I was delighted to see Tosh and Shu again, who I liked a lot before. Sadly, the main characters in this game are mostly quite boring folk. Arguing teens and clueless youths. Alec is also way too optimistic about everything. Goes too easily with the flow, I'd say.

Eventually the party encounters a special group, that is bent on restoring some old technology by any means necessary. Even with the 'Warning: Evil Energy' sign plastered all over everything, they still just have to do the same mistake as other people before. With no real motivation, other than blind ambition, this group is hard to take seriously. I wasn't really very interested in the story, and that's a shame, as I liked the story in the previous game a lot. It's like everything has been simplified and made compact this time around. It's just too small in every aspect to be really compelling.

Swing and Bang
Battles are, unfortunately, short and easy. What makes them easy is the area in which the characters can inflict damage upon. Quite soon on the first continent already, both Alec and Lutz have a special skill that does damage to an area of 13 squares in size. Take into account that the battle fields are usually less than 20 squares in each dimension, usually closer to 10, and there are only 3-7 enemies per battle, these skills are overkill. And if that's not enough, you have two characters that can equip guns. A machinegun does damage to 4 squares and shotgun to 8 squares, just to name two common weapons. Add to that a spell caster with 13 square spells aplenty, standard attacks, other than guns, become obsolete very quickly. One character has the ability to capture and then summon monsters to do damage or inflict status penalties or bonuses. Quite often capturing a tougher than average monster means that when you unleash it, it takes out all the enemies on the field. They're just that weak and unchallenging. Only boss battles have some challenge to them, though even so, I don't think I ever lost one.

In towns, after you reach a certain point in the game, you can start synthesizing items and weapons, by combining two or more items with each other. You can learn recipes for this in special Society offices scattered in towns, or you can just experiment by yourself. Experimenting is pretty useless in the early parts of the game though. You don't have much materials, and when you fail at an experiment (which you WILL, 99% of the time), you lose the items you used. All useful synthesizable items require expensive or rare ingredient to be made, so you're better off saving that one special ingredient for a recipe that will actually work. Synthesizing does provide access to some weapons, like shotguns and special swords and amulets, but other than that, it's not necessary, and not really worth the time and effort to be casually explored.

Old is gold?
The game looks old. Even for being a PSX title, and even for being a third title on the same console, the graphics aren't really impressive at all. Enviroments have been mostly updated to 3D, but with the camera looking at everything in a fixed angle, the 3d apect is quite pointless, and I liked the environments in previous titles better. Characters are still 2d, but somehow I think they don't look as good as before either. Some CG movies are included, and they're ok. Just not impressive or anything.

Music is... mediocre at best. I've heard tons of better soundtracks on even older games. The music gets repetitive and is simple, and there's very limited selection of it. To me, music can sometimes make a game. In this case, it doesn't. It's way too forgettable.

The conclusion
The game lasts for a solid 50-60 hours if you explore most of the jobs in guilds, and hunt down most of the wanted monsters. Usually I like it when an RPG is long, but the scale in which the story is presented, as well as the simple and overkill battles, could've been better in form of 20-30 hours of playtime. The story simply drags on for too long, and is accompanied by too many jobs that include running and talking to people for very limited rewards. It's not a bad game, just average at most. If you just like RPG's for their stories, and can ignore overly simplified battles and cliché story, this is a very playable game. To someone like me, looking for a purpose or goal in a game, this was a chore to complete.

Scoring
Visuals: 7/10
For a game of its age, the graphics are rather unimpressive. The 2d style of characters can be appealing, but in this case even that lacks fine-tuning. 3d graphics are pointless in a game like this, on PSX.

Audio: 7/10
Repetitive music, poor selection of tracks. Everything's forgettable.

Gameplay: 7/10
Battle skills are overkill, and battles require very little planning. It's fun at times, but there's hardly a challenge at any point in the game.

Lasting Value: 6/10
It does last, but for too long. I'm quite sure that very few would play this game twice, and I'm sure many people never finished it at all.

Overall: 6/10
I like Arc the Lad games, but this one just didn't feel much fun. Even though the previous title had some tedious jobs to do as well, this time it felt like completing them took ages, and they were not as interesting. It's playable, just not very interesting game.

'Budget price' review: Shadowgrounds (PC)

Budget price games are always a great alternative for gamers who don't care so much about graphics or latest tech, and independent game publishers sometimes release very interesting and unique titles at low prices as well. At times I'll be reviewing such games. The games will be scored to match the expectations of games from the said price range. Here's my first review.

Shadowgrounds
I've been neglecting the games made by studios in my own country (Finland) for the past few years. Lots of popular games have come out, Max Payne and Flatout to name two that come to mind. When I noticed Shadowgrounds, a game by Frozenbyte from late 2005, sold as digital download on Totalgaming.net at an affordable price of $9.95, I couldn't resist purchasing it. One reason why I bought the game was because it was promised to have a co-operative mode, and I wanted to enjoy it with a friend. This review is based mainly on the co-operative experience, which luckily seems to be pretty much identical to the single player game.

Shootin' aplenty
Shadowgrounds is an action-packed arcade-like shooter at heart, though it also has a hint of adventure and RPG in it. You play as technician, situated near a space colony New Atlantis, which is about to be under attack by aliens. There's not much story to tell, which is a good aspect for anyone looking for pure action. Only minutes from the start you're already picking up your first pistol and making bullet holes to hordes of spider-like aliens. Interestingly, the only item you start with, the flashlight, is also useful against at least two types of enemies, which becomes evident as you rush through the first corridors by pointing a flashlight at the spiders that apparently hate light. Throughout the game you'll be picking additional weaponry, up to ten different types. The RPG element I mentioned earlier is mainly evident in the guns, which you can upgrade with upgrade chips that enemies often drop. These upgrades are usually pretty significant too, with benefits like larger clip, doubled damage, faster fire rate, etc. The weapons are mostly much fun to use, and you often find yourself switching to a weapon better suited for the situation. Grenades and rockets against large monsters, minigun against a row of incoming aliens, pistol against the weaklings, and so on.

Hey, I'm up here!
The game is viewed from top-down perspective, so you have a good view of the surroundings most of the time. You move the character with keyboard, and aim with the mouse. This works quite well.

What surprised me most were the graphics though, or more exactly the lights and shadows. Pointing flashlight around in a dark room creates some rather eerie shadows, that constantly twist as you move about. Rails and pipes can sometimes have a startling resemblance in shape to certain types of aliens, though in light you wouldn't mistake them for one, obviously. All in all, the structure of the game is very simple, but the textures look great and detailed. My favorites parts were levels where there was both interiors of buildings to explore, as well as outside roads and alleys that connect them. Enemies could be coming from any direction, including from underground and air ducts.

Intel on the opposition
There are several types of aliens, some with varying types and weapons or abilities, but overall I felt that there could've been a few more. Spiders and dogs (as my friend liked to call the armadillo-like creatures) are everywhere for a good part of the initial game. Some more unique aliens start showing up later on though, so you never get to play for a long period without seeing something new. The creatures behave quite nicely, though they all have only one objective, get to the player and shoot, smash or gnaw him to death.

The game offers various difficulty levels, and I'm looking forward to trying the harder ones again later. The normal difficulty was entertainingly intense in co-operative mode for the latter part of the game. I managed to die couple of times during the entire game. In co-op mode this means both players respawning again at the level entrance. Medikits are luckily plentiful in all levels, so if you survive a wave of monsters, you'll be healed up again behind the next corner. It sounds a bit easy, yes, but also makes the game less frustrating to progress.

Leftovers and co-op inspected
There's something I need to mention about the co-op mode. It's only possible on the same computer, with both characters on the same screen. The second player is controlled with a joystick/gamepad, and it is highly recommended to have a gamepad with two analog controllers, one to move with, and one to aim, though the official site claims that any gamepad should be enough to control a character. I played the co-op with a Playstation 2 gamepad, plugged in an adapter for PC. For a pc gamer, this might sound horrible, but I have to admit, I was surprised by how well I was able to perform with the gamepad, considering that I have hardly ever played any games that require usage of both analog sticks. The gamepad hardly made the experience worse.

Shadowgrounds is unfortunately a very short game. In co-op mode, it was over in less than 6 hours. I wouldn't complain about the length much though, as the price was fitting for this title, and it has replay potential with its easy access and straightforward action.

Scoring
(Please note: the scoring is scaled to budget releases.)

Visuals: 10/10
Some people will most likely disagree with this verdict, but I think it's true that for a $9.95, you're getting some impressive lighting work and very nicely textured areas.

Audio: 9/10
Audio is very good too. Weapons make some nice sounds and the music, while being a bit repetitive at times, has a very fitting arcade feel to it. Only voice acting could've been better. Slightly lacking in emotion (The character portraits are also slightly to blame for this), they're a bit... whatever-like.

Gameplay: 9/10
Surprisingly solid controls, even with gamepad. It's common to get stuck in some corners of tight corridors at times, but it's usually only momentary, and you'll be free again in seconds.

Lasting Value: 8/10
A bit short, but has replayability potential. If nothing else, it's got content for both a single player campaign and a co-op experience. Should provide you a nice 10 hours of entertainment at minimum, even more if you really like arcade shooters.

Overall: 9/10
With more multiplayer options and slightly longer campaign, this would be a perfect game in its price range. Even now, I highly recommend the game to anyone who enjoys blasting some aliens to pieces, preferably with a friend even.

Lastly, I want to inform you that the sequel to Shadowgrounds, titles Shadowground Survivor, has been released this week. According to screenshots and info at the official website, it looks even better now, and should also have option for co-op with multiple keyboard and mice, so you don't need a gamepad. I'll possibly purchase and review this game in future as well. For more info, screenshots and system requirements on the original Shadowgrounds, see the official website.

First Impressions: Unreal Tournament 3 demo

I've been a fan of the Unreal Tournament games ever since the first game that came out in '99 or something. Before that one, I hardly never played first-person shooters. A friend introduced the game to me and some friends. I hadn't heard of the game before that, so I was delightfully shocked to notice I liked the weapons and music, and later on even the maps of the game. Soon we started playing it at evenings, later on in clans. The interest faded a bit over time and Unreal Tournament 2003 didn't really revive the old classic. I did keep on playing the games though. But my history with the games aside, I've played the demo of the latest installment, Unreal Tournament 3, and have some opinions to share.

Back to the roots
UT2003 and UT2004 started taking the game away from its original style, and everything became a bit more mainstream. However, UT3 seems to be taking a tiny step backwards with some things.

The weapons seem more precise again, and while they feel slower, they also seem to be more deadly. The Enforcer pistol from the original UT also makes a comeback, though the secondary fire now shoots bursts of three shots, rather than being less accurate but faster firing mode. Rocket Launcher seems to pack a bunch again, though still fires only maximum of three rockets or grenades. Lightning gun seems to also be gone, with sniper rifle replacing it, like it was back in '99. Power-ups on maps are pretty much the same as before.

Movement is also slightly more restricted, although noticeably faster than before. You can no longer do a dodge plus jump for instance, though double jump, dodge and dodge from a wall is still possible. All in all though, it's still much closer to '03 and '04, which isn't necessarily a bad thing.

Game modes
As usual to the series, there's going to be a new game mode in the retail version, called Warfare, which is a combination of the Assault and Onslaught modes. Unfortunately, the demo doesn't show this mode in action, so I can't comment on it yet.

Assault mode will be gone. It never seemed to be a popular mode, even though it's much fun for a casual gamer. Onslaught will be there, along with Deathmatching and Capture the Flag, which by the way now comes with vehicles too. The same ones as in Onslaught mode. The demo features one map for this Vehicle CTF mode. The map is rather small, a suspension bridge crossing a river, so not all units have much use, such as the Hellfire artillery, which rarely can shoot in the places you'd need it to be able to shoot at. New in this mode is also the hoverboard, which seems to replace the translocator device from previous games. It's basically a floating board that you can move around with, with almost twice the normal speed. It's also the fastest way of carrying a flag alone. You can't shoot while being on the board though, and if you get hit while using it, you fall down, unable to perform actions for about 2-3 seconds. You can use it to grab onto friendly vehicles though, for even faster transportation.

Deathmatch seems pretty standard fare, though the maps also seem more open now. One of the maps in the demo also sports a bonus vehicle from the Warfare mode, a walking tripod, definitely inspired by War of the Worlds. If you get to ride this thing, it's got some neat powerful guns. Takes a good beating to destroy too, but definitely not too much to be overly powerful.

The things you see and hear
Graphics have been updated again. I personally like the change, though it could go to the direction of original UT even more. Aside from maybe a wee bit too much rounded items and general details, I'd say it looks really good, and runs very nicely even on a computer that doesn't have quite the latest hardware. Chances are that if you can play UT2004, you can probably enjoy UT3 as well, though probably with slightly reduced detail levels.

Music seems pretty standard fare, though I have to say, the theme music seems like a remixed version of the original, and I had these nostalgic chills running through my spine on a couple of occasions. The original UT just happened to be that special to me. It was the game that made me enjoy first-person shooters.

Final scoring
I like to score the initial impressions I have on games, and then review the final product later on. Although I'm a bit biased here, being a UT fan. The retail review could be total opposite, who knows.

Visuals: 9/10
I'd so love to give this a 10, but a few things could look better, mostly in the style department, but that's really a matter of taste. It's not perfect, though I like it a lot.

Audio: 8/10
Nothing special. Nice sounds, some nice music, sounds like UT alright.

Gameplay: 8/10
Movement seems good, except for vehicle handling, which ranges from overly free to almost inresponsive. It's not bad... but for maximum enjoyment, it could be much better. Game modes in the demo are nothing spectacular either, really.

Lasting Value: 9/10
I still like playing the demo. So if the retail has enough good maps on it, then we can expect a long life for this game.

Overall: 8/10
The game seems very promising, but that's also how I felt about UT2004. The initial fun rate was 10/10, but in mere couple of weeks, it fell down to about 7/10, and soon became more and more forgettable. I would like to give this one a 9/10 just because it's UT3, but wise from the previous title, I need to be prepared for a slight disappointment. the way I see it though, the game won't be a total failure if it runs stable and without major bugs, and if the game keeps evolving and growing, not just by hardcore gamers' needs, but casual gamers' as well.

The release date is set at the end of November at the moment, and it'll probably hold. Even with some bugs, they most likely want the game available by the time christmas sales begin.

First Impressions: Hellgate: London beta

About Hellgate: London
Those of you who haven't heard of Hellgate: London yet, it's basically a new Diablo-like hack'n slash game, originating from some of the creators of the original Diablo game(s). It's got a single player story, as well as multiplayer mode, both working in a rather standard MMO fashion. The location of the story seems to be in London, England, in a futuristic fantasy-type setting. You have machines and guns, but also spells and swords.

Hellgate: London beta
Having played mostly older games lately, I decided to place a pre-order for Hellgate: London, because the theme and genre interest me. Pre-ordering from certain retailers grants you an access key to the beta multiplayer game. The release date of the game is set at less than two weeks from now, and I can pretty much wager that it'll be postponed by at least a few weeks minimum. The multiplayer is technically up'n running, but buggy as hell. I'm not sure how much the testers are allowed to reveal things to the public (since I'm just like everyone else and don't read the agreement stuff upon installation of a game.), so I'll keep things brief, just to give a general idea of what I've witnessed in the short time I've played.

Hack'n Slash
I wasn't really quite sure what to expect from the game when I finally was able to login at the beta server. It's hack'n slash, and supposed to be Diablo-like, so that's what I was expecting. The game is hack'n slash indeed, but because of the rather World of Warcraft -like controls, it feels more like an MMORPG, than traditional hack'n slash games, which consist more of 'click-click' than movement key tapping.

I've only played worth about 6 levels with two characters, amounting to about 4-5 hours of gametime, probably. So far, the enemies have been easy. Too easy even. I've heard that the combat is more hectic in a party, as the amount of enemies and stuff increases too. I'm yet to try that out, but hopefully soon enough.

I started with an Engineer character, whose abilities include constructing/summoning bots and drones to support in the battle, while the player mostly uses guns to shoot from a distance. This seems to work rather nicely, and an upgraded bot can take a good beating while keeping most of the enemies away from the player(s).

As a second option, I chose a Guardian, similar to Paladin class in most fantasy games. Well armored, wields a sword and has protective and self-healing abilities. Since there's much more close combat battle than with the summoning classes, the character also takes more damage, though even so, I hardly ever had to manually heal the character.

London
The game seems to be set around underground tunnels of the city, basically meaning metro/subway stations, with various tunnels and even some famous locations as questing zones. The stations are kind of sanctuary locations, where players can do shopping, accept quests and gather a party. Once you enter an area with enemies, a random instance is created, and only you (and your other party members) can access it. So, you won't have random high-level people killing all the enemies or looting all the stuff ahead like in some other hack'n slash games, which is kind of a good thing, but also very lonely setting for online gaming. I like playing mostly alone, sometimes with a friend, so the requirement to have a party to experience intense action is a big minus, I think.

Barrels 'n Boxes
The instances are filled with barrels, boxes and chests, just like in Diablo, though this time around barrels are steel, boxes cardboard and chests metal cases, at least in the first parts of the game. You'll find lots of items during the game, many of them are equippable, but only a fraction for your class. The useless items can be sold, or broken into pieces, which you can use to upgrade or construct new items at stations. Cash is rarely a problem, as you find lots of it in the instances if you just bother to crack open everything.

Braaaaiinnnnnsss...
Enemies are mostly demonic stuff. Zombies, skeletons, demons, lizards, stuff like that. Some boss creatures show up every now and then, but so far I haven't found them very challenging myself. Hopefully the default difficulty is upped a bit for the final game. Otherwise lasting value is going to be rather low. I'm trying to stay optimistic though.

First Impressions Scoring:
So, what's the verdict for first impressions?
I'd say something along these lines:

Visuals: 9/10
Looks great for an MMO game. For a single player game, it's all pretty average.

Audio: 8/10
The little music there is works well with the theme. Sounds are pretty ordinary, guns could could make more noise.

Gameplay: 6/10
Buggy as what, but it's a beta, so this is expected. Controls seem pretty standard.

Lasting Value: 5/10
The game has potential, but if there won't be much changes, especially to the difficulty factor, then this is looking to be a game with rather short age.

Overall: 7/10
I'm not canceling my pre-order, but I'm not too ecstatic about the game either. Still looking forward to the final version though.

Last words... for now
In case I'll keep the pre-order, then expect to see a preview of the retail product later. ;) Hardcore MMO and hack'n slash fans should find this an interesting game, though time will tell how good the final build will be...

The birth of a new blog

Introduction
'ello everyone. I'm HitmanN. I made this blog to be a place where I can let out some of my thoughts and rant about things. I reside in Finland, Europe, and my views will probably occasionally reflect that.

If someone knows me by my nickname from before, then that's most likely because of one of two things. First, I used to run a web page called Unlimited Units, which was a place where I (and couple of other people) uploaded custom content for the PC game Total Annihilation. More probably you might know me from my galleries at both my website http://www.hitmann.net or my DeviantART acount. I mainly draw anime (japanese cartoon/comic style) girls, with the intent of making 'em look cute and sexy. It's not a thing for everyone, but it's what I enjoy doing, and I dare say I've progressed plenty in the 4-5 years I've been doing it. ;)

About this blog
Well, needless to say, since I have a website, and a DA account, I don't need a blog for talking about art. Instead, I want to dedicate this blog mainly to my secondary hobby, which is computer and console gaming. I might occasionally talk about totally unrelated stuff too though.

My current set of gaming platforms include a PC (recently upgraded), Playstation and Playstation 2. If I go and get a new console in the next year or so, it'll most likely be a Playstation 3. Or if there isn't enough good games for it by then, then possibly Xbox360. Time and budget will tell. ;) Nintendo hasn't been on my purchase list since SNES though, that I can say right away, though I'm still considering picking up a used GameCube to get to play a few games on it.

My favorite genres are as follows:
PC: Strategy, RPG, Shooters, Arcade
PSX: RPG, Arcade
PS2: RPG, Arcade, Racing

However, I do like trying games from genres too, though sports games are something I've never really caught on. Real-life simulations in general tend to not interest me much. A little imagination does good for a game, I think. ;)

Currently I'm playing the following:
PSX: Arc the Lad 3
PC: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory, Unreal Tournament 3 demo

I also got a key for playing the beta of Hellgate: London, but haven't had a chance to experience it yet, with the servers being down.

Plans for future
So, what kind of stuff do I intend to talk about here then? Most likely my first impressions on games, opinions/reviews after finishing (or having played enough) a game, and possible random news I found interesting and want to share. As next article, I'll most likely type about something related to the games I listed a few lines above.