1742: Reaping Rafflesia

You may recall a short while ago I talked a little about Turn 5 of the Binding Coil of Bahamut in Final Fantasy XIV, notorious as being one of the most difficult battles in the game and essentially, if you want to look at it that way, the “true final boss” of the game as it existed at launch.

Since clearing that a few times, we’ve managed to get a regular group together to take on the Second Coil of Bahamut, a four-part dungeon that follows on from the original Binding Coil — and which is soon to be superceded by The Final Coil of Bahamut, bringing this particular side story to a close in suitably climactic fashion with patch 2.4.

We’re by no means ready for the Final Coil of Bahamut yet — mainly because you have to clear Second Coil in order to even enter Final Coil — but we’ve been discovering the joy of having a regular, committed and enthusiastic group together to take on challenging fights.

The first Turn of the Second Coil of Bahamut (known in FFXIV vernacular as “Turn 6” or “T6”, since it’s the sixth overall part of the Coil storyline) is deceptively simple, much like the other Coil confrontations. You begin by making your way across some perilous terrain and fending off the unwanted advances of golems that spawn from chunks of dark matter and corrupted crystals. Having fought your way past these — destroying the crystals on the way — you find yourself in front of a fragment of Dalamud, the moon that fell from the sky at the end of Final Fantasy XIV’s version 1.0 incarnation (and, by extension, the beginning of A Realm Reborn) and burst open to reveal the elder primal Bahamut. Over the course of the first Binding Coil of Bahamut, you come to discover some interesting bits and pieces about what Dalamud really was, why Bahamut was inside it and, indeed, what happened to it following the apocalyptic “end of the world” that appeared to happen at the conclusion of 1.0. Second Coil is elsewhere in the lands of Eorzea, and promises to offer further insights into the truth — but, of course, it’s not that easy.

Your main obstacle towards even getting inside the damn place is an unpleasant little thing called Rafflesia, a plant from the Gridanian Twelveswood that has been corrupted by dark matter and which now appears to be a tad on the pissed off side. You ain’t getting inside the Dalamud fragment without getting past Rafflesia, and thus begins another extremely challenging battle that our group is yet to clear — but which we’ve made significant progress on in our two attempts to date.

Like the previous encounters in the various Turns of the Coil, the battle against Rafflesia initially appears to be extremely complex and insurmountably difficult, but in reality it’s all about being organised, communicating effectively and knowing how to deal with the various situations in which you find yourself.

Shortly after the fight begins, Rafflesia whips two party members with thorny vines, which attaches them together and continues to do damage as long as they remain joined. The only escape from this spiky fate is to run in opposite directions until the vine is snapped.

The plant monster then goes on to spawn dark matter bulbs, deadly seedlings that sprout into spiky briar patches that slow the movement of anyone unfortunate enough to step into them. A key part of this battle comes in the management of these briar patches; our attempts involved keeping Rafflesia as central as possible and only worrying about bulbs if they appeared where Rafflesia was. This occasionally demands that you dance around a little to make sure you’re not standing in thorns, but it does allow you to concentrate on what you’re really there for — punching/stabbing/burning/chopping a plant monster to death.

Rafflesia is a hungry beast, though, and every so often a party member will find themselves the target of the monster’s appetite. She’ll suck in everything in front of her, then devour it before spitting it out again; ideally, by the time she’s doing the first thing, you’re well out of the way, ensuring that the second and third things don’t happen to you.

Rafflesia, being a plant, also has numerous unpleasant spores and gases designed for the obliteration of unsuspecting adventuring parties. Most deadly among these is her Blighted Bouquet, a devastating move which causes immediate death to anyone unfortunate enough to have been doing anything — moving, attacking, using an ability — when it goes off. She’s also fond of glazing a party member in honey, which causes dark matter-corrupted hornets to come in and give the unfortunate adventurer some unwanted attention — and eventual death, if they’re not defeated, too.

So far, we’re yet to defeat Rafflesia; her Blighted Bouquet and dark matter hornets have proven particularly troublesome to deal with, but we’ve made honest-to-goodness progress in the two sessions of about 2.5-3 hours each that we’ve had to take on the fight to date. Along the way, we’ve come to work well together as a party, too, and the desire is there from all of us to continue the fight against Rafflesia, onwards into the fragment of Dalamud and, eventually, into the Final Coil of Bahamut to discover the truth behind the Calamity. (And, of course, to get some sweet loot in the process, too.)

I’ve been really enjoying our sessions so far; as I’ve noted before, Final Fantasy XIV is the first MMO that not only maintained my attention from beginning to level cap, but which has kept me interested with its endgame, too. Second Coil is, as of now, the most challenging dungeon in the game — though this will change on Tuesday when Final Coil arrives — and it’s a pleasure to be able to take on these tough encounters with a group of people who are becoming not just online comrades, but friends, too.

1309: Dress-Up

A guilty pleasure of mine that I’ve always had is playing dress-up. It doesn’t matter if it’s in reality or in some sort of virtual world (more commonly the latter these days, to be honest) — I love picking out outfits and accessories and attempting to coordinate and/or clash them horribly. It’s ironic, really, given my own complete lack of interest in fashion — though this comes about more from being a big guy who can’t get any decent clothes that fit than anything else.

A number of different interactive experiences have scratched my dress-up itch over the years. Most recently, I’ve been having fun with the “attachments” feature in Namco Bandai’s Tales of Xillia, which allows you to deface all of your party members with various accessories, extra bits of hair and glasses, then enjoy your monstrous creations in battle, in the field and in cutscenes. Despite the potential for mischief, though, I’ve stayed largely restrained and sensible: protagonist Milla is sporting a pair of elf ears (that really suit both her looks and personality); “childhood friend” character Leia is sporting some adorable pigtails and half-rim glasses; young girl Eliza has her adorability factor amped up to 11 with the addition of wiggly rabbit ears and a fluffy tail.

Final Fantasy XIV has its share of amusement value from clothing and appearance options, too. I spent quite a long time on creating the look of my character this time around, eventually settling on a Hyur (human) female with red hair (of course) with some bright highlights giving her a slightly “frosted” look — very Final Fantasy. XIV’s character creation tools give you a wealth of options to play with, some of which you’ll only ever see in cutscenes, but it’s nice to be able to take advantage of them. My character, for example, has a small heart-shaped tattoo on her cheek that is all but invisible unless you look closely, and also has odd-coloured eyes. No-one I’m playing the game with will notice those things as, generally speaking, you don’t get close enough to other players to see that much detail. But when I see her doing her thing in cutscenes, I’ll see those little details I added and she’ll feel like my avatar, rather than something arbitrarily chosen for me.

I used to play on a roleplaying server for World of Warcraft, which meant a significant proportion of my time in the game was spent sitting around talking to other players and pretending to actually be our characters. It was a lot of fun, particularly as WoW offered you a few “non-combat” outfits that you could dress in. Since my character was a skilled tailor, she’d managed to make herself a nice array of different dresses to suit various occasions, and it was always fun to show up in a new outfit and have it acknowledged.

This particular guilty pleasure of mine means that there’s one type of DLC I have a total weakness for, even with my general like of nickel-and-dime pointless DLC that doesn’t add anything to the experience, and that’s costume DLC. If I have the option to customise my characters’ appearances further with new downloadable costumes, chances are I will take that opportunity. This likewise means that if a game provides the opportunity to earn a new costume by completing various challenges, I will generally drop everything I’m doing to try and earn that costume. I recall a ridiculous amount of grinding in Dark Chronicle (aka Dark Cloud 2 to earn a leopard-print bikini, but man, it felt good to finally earn it and subsequently take on the final boss in a woefully underdressed state.

Anyway. I digress, before I start getting into a lengthy discussion of how immensely fashionable my Second Life avatars were in their heyday…

#oneaday Day 910: Continued Adventures in The Secret World

I’m still playing The Secret World and still enjoying it. Generally a pretty good sign for an MMO is if it can maintain my attention through the first month and convince me to continue paying the subscription fee (if applicable) past that point. The Secret World is certainly keeping me occupied and entertained, and I’m enjoying it a great deal.

I’ve progressed somewhat since the last time I discussed the game. I’m in the second of the game’s main “adventure” areas, which is another part of the Innsmouth-style Lovecraft town. Rather than the more “towny” area that you start in, the second part is more like a forested outskirts area. There are fewer houses, streets tend to wend their way into the depths of the woods, and there are creepy Twin Peaks-style lakes with mist rolling off them (and monsters lurking in the fog, of course).

The missions continue to display an excellent amount of variety. There are a few more “kill [x] of [y]” action missions than I’d perhaps prefer there to be, but they generally have more of a narrative incentive to progress than in other MMOs. For example, in one mission I completed tonight, I was tasked with killing a bunch of draugr and then burning their bodies. This attracted some more powerful draugr, which I then had to kill and impale on some spikes. This attracted a draugr queen, which I then had to kill and splay out on a pointy rock. This attracted a draugr berserker, which I… you get the idea. This process continued through several steps, with increasingly more difficult fights along the way. At the end of the quest, my “handler” and I reached the conclusion that the draugr had an organised hierarchy and chain of command that could potentially be exploited in the future. Much cooler than simply returning to a questgiver and them going “thanks for killing all those wolves”. (Praise should also be given to the fact that, this being the modern world, you turn in quests simply by phoning your handler rather than having to return to whoever gave you your quest.)

The fact that most missions incorporate something a little more than just plain killing is the best thing, though. In another one I completed today, I had to gather mushrooms from various areas around the map (guarded by horrible slobbering things from the depths of the ocean, natch) and then mix them together according to a recipe on a scrap of paper I had to remember I’d been handed at the start of the quest. The Secret World assumes a certain degree of intelligence on the part of the player, and doesn’t remind you that, say, the instructions you need to complete a quest are safely in your journal — or, indeed, that sometimes you have to use the crafting interface to complete an objective.

Speaking of the crafting interface, it’s a surprisingly cool approach somewhat reminiscent of Minecraft, of all things. Disassembling equipment you don’t need rewards you with raw materials, which can then be combined together to make various objects. The twist is, you have to arrange them into the correct formations to produce the things you’re after. You can then add things like glyphs to give them special abilities and bonuses and customize them.

I even tried a bit of PvP the other night. I normally hate PvP in MMOs because in most cases it’s a horribly unbalanced afterthought that simply isn’t any fun whatsoever. It is terrible in Star Wars: The Old Republic, for example, and I’ve never really been a fan of it in World of Warcraft, either. The Secret World has some interesting ideas, though, that make PvP well worth engaging in.

There are currently (I think) three PvP areas in the game. Two of these are instanced battlegrounds in which players take part in timed team-based matches according to whichever faction they’re on. The other, though, is a large map which has persistent PvP going on at all times. A number of facilities cover this map, and it’s up to each faction to capture (and, ideally, hold) each of these locations. There’s a strong incentive to do so, because all players of a given faction receive ongoing buffs according to how many facilities their secret society is in control of.

And people are playing it well. The chat channels in the PvP areas are full of people actually bothering to talk to each other, strategise and coordinate their efforts. The Templars appear to have a bit of a numbers advantage, but that certainly hasn’t stopped my faction, the Illuminati, from having a bit of fun — especially during quiet periods. Which is nice.

All in all, then, Funcom have done an excellent job in shaking up the very stale MMO space and creating something that it distinctive, entertaining and downright compelling. Its writing is good, its world is beautifully crafted and the whole experience is wrapped together with some unconventional but very effective game mechanics that successfully distinguish it from the million and one World of Warcraft clones out there. I strongly suggest you give it a try if you get the chance.

#oneaday Day 901: Lost in The Secret World

Well, I’ve spent a great deal of today playing Funcom’s new MMO The Secret World and… and…

Well. Wow.

You remember how everyone hailed The Old Republic as a massive step forward for MMORPGs — before everyone realised it was actually just World of Warcraft in space, that is? Yeah. The Secret World actually is a significant step forward for MMORPGs.

Why, you ask?

Well, let’s consider its thematic content for starters. The Secret World is a lush, rich combination of all manner of influences, including, among other things, Illuminati/Templar/some Asian dudes conspiracy theories, The X-Files and the work of H.P. Lovecraft. The early stages of the game feel very much like what a hypothetical Arkham Horror Online would play like — you’re an “investigator” for one of the three factions in a town called Kingsmouth (which, in the “creepy American small town” stakes is in the unenviable position of being somewhere between Lovecraft’s Innsmouth and Silent Hill‘s, uh, Silent Hill), you wander around trying to get to the bottom of what has caused a zombie apocalypse (I KNOW, ZOMBIES, but bear with me) and the mysterious fog that has come in from the sea. Also, big slobbering tentacle monsters. And people going “a bit mental.” Apparently Cthulhu is involved at some point, but I haven’t got that far as yet.

So The Secret World eschews the usual fantasy or sci-fi tropes of the MMORPG genre in favour of a modern-day setting dripping with Lovecraftian atmosphere — at least in its initial stages, anyway. And it actually bothers to tell a fully-realised story (with full speech and cutscenes) rather than a limp, loosely-connected set of questlines. But it’s not just the theme and the strong narrative that distinguishes The Secret World from its numerous competitors. The game systems are also an impressive breath of fresh air.

Let’s start with the quests. While some quests do include objectives such as “kill [x] [y]s”, these are usually part of a longer chain of events. Where things get interesting are when you break away from what the game refers to as “action” missions and you get to take on “sabotage” and “investigation” quests. While “action” missions, as you might expect, involve killing things, “sabotage” and “investigation” challenges are a little different.

In a sabotage mission, stealth and environmental puzzle solving is emphasised. In an early example, you have to retrieve a number of security cameras from abandoned businesses around the town and set them up in strategically advantageous places for both the police and your faction. Many of the cameras are out of reach from ground level, necessitating a bit of exploration as you figure out how you can actually reach them. As the mission progresses, you eventually find yourself exploring an instanced “mini dungeon” in which you have to avoid security cameras and laser tripwires while working out a route to disable various control panels without being spotted.

Investigation missions, meanwhile, are a lot more elaborate. The current one I’m working on has 18 steps in it. If you consider that your average MMO quest has 3 steps at most (get quest, kill/collect shit, return to questgiver), this is pretty impressive. When you look at what some of these steps involve, it’s even more impressive.

In investigation missions, the fourth wall is broken slightly as the player has to put their own intelligence to the test. Clues are given for various challenges, and it’s up to the player to figure out how to solve them. An early, simple example involves working out the password for someone’s computer using a couple of hints they’ve left around the place, but later ones see you doing everything from deciphering morse code messages to making use of the in-game web browser to research real-world things. (Of course, you could just cheat using said web browser, but the community is already rather sensitive about spoilers, so you’ll be surprised at how few “answers” are out there already.)

This brilliantly diverse questing system is coupled with an excellent levelling mechanic. Players level up at a consistent rate throughout the game and can eventually unlock all the skills from all the disciplines — but it’s only possible to equip seven active and seven passive skills at once, much like how Guild Wars does things. It’s possible to save these “decks” of skills, however, allowing you to easily switch your character build on the fly according to the situation you’re in or what the group you’re with needs you to do.

Combat, too, is quite interesting. While it’s the usual “hotbar and cooldown” approach, there’s a much more “action game” feel to it here, thanks in part to the fact that positioning is important — particularly when baddies start doing area-of-effect attacks. You can take on a lot more enemies at once than in many other MMOs, giving the game a much more exciting, dynamic feeling rather than simply getting into the rhythm of pressing the number keys that titles like World of Warcraft offer.

In short, The Secret World is evidence that there is still some creativity among those who make MMOs. Not everyone wants to make a World of Warcraft clone, and Funcom have succeeded in creating an experience that is very much its own thing — and very much worth your time and money. C’mon. You can’t say the prospect of doing a raid on Cthulhu doesn’t appeal just a little bit.

#oneaday Day 707: Holy Balls, How Did It Get to 3AM?

Okay. I think we can say with some certainty that The Old Republic is A Bit Good, judging by the fact that I uttered that very statement above while playing with my good buddy Jeff “Feenwager” Parsons tonight. This morning. Whatever.

As I said the other day, while the game does suffer from a few of the genre’s perpetual annoyances (having to traipse all the way back to a trainer to learn new skills is something MMOs should really move beyond, for one thing) it does a lot of things right. It’s balanced nicely for those players who want to play solo and just happen to “live” in the same world as other players. There are specifically-designed areas known as “Heroic Areas” which are light on story and heavy on fighting, ideal for pick-up groups. There are more lengthy multiplayer story-heavy missions known as Flashpoints. There is PvP. And pretty much everything can be played cooperatively if you so desire.

Some have argued that the writing perhaps isn’t up to BioWare’s usual tip-top standards, but when you consider the amount of content in this game even at launch, it’s perhaps not surprising. That said, the “dark side” options in dialogue (which can usually be interpreted as “snarky”) are often amusing. I’ll be interested to see if playing a dark-inclined Jedi will have any significant effect on the plot. It’s provoked some NPC comments so far, but I’m very early into my playthrough with said dark-inclined Jedi, so a lot remains to be seen.

Perhaps the most notable thing about the game is the fact that it’s encouraging people who aren’t huge fans of MMOs to give it a shot. Jeff, whom I mentioned above, is one. My buddy Edd, aka Roth, whom I used to play Final Fantasy XI with for a short period, is another. A good indicator of The Old Republic getting things “right” for me will be if these two stick around beyond the free month — and if other friends who typically shy away from the genre sign up, too. I hope they do, as these games are always more fun with friends.

The community I’ve encountered so far has been very friendly. With my “main” character on the European servers, I plumped for an RP (Roleplaying) server as this generally is populated with more pleasant types. I haven’t been disappointed so far — when asking for advice, people are usually happy to give it rather than inviting you to “Google it”. This is nice. Quite how long it will last, I don’t know — the game is still new, after all — but for now I’ll enjoy it.

The only thing I can see putting people off trying The Old Republic is the price. With so many free MMOs out there now, it’s hard to justify spending “full price” on a new one, plus a monthly subscription after the first month. But it’s effectively several BioWare games in one, along with a potential WoW-beater. And if that isn’t value for money, I’m not sure what is.

#oneaday Day 618: Glitch in the System

Glitch, brainchild of Flickr cofounder Stewart Butterfield, launched to the public today following an extremely lengthy and well organised testing period. I played the game briefly during testing while writing an article about it and found the experience utterly bewildering. I’ve had another go, and I still find it utterly bewildering.

The thing that is most bewildering is arguably its most defining feature — its non-violent nature. There is no hacking up wolves to collect 300 pelts for someone in the village. There is no dungeon delving to defeat some terrible great evil. There is no “take on this army of identical enemies singlehandedly, unless you’re in a party.” No, there’s just a world, filled with trees, pigs, butterflies and bureaucracy, and it’s pretty much up to you what you choose to do with your time there.

Your pet rock, who introduces the game to you in a tutorial which doesn’t really tell you much beyond the basic controls, offers you a few quests to show you what you can do over the course of your first few hours. But beyond that, it’s up to you what you choose to get on with and what skills you choose to focus on. Are you going to become a miner? A chef? Someone who talks to animals? There’s a wide range of things for you to do — but none of them involve killing things.

The saying goes “you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone” (or something along those lines) and it’s true — it’s easy to take for granted that the fundamental play mechanic of the vast amount of games out there is killing things, whether it’s dudes, monsters, aliens, zombies or anything else threatening the status quo. As gamers, we’re comfortable with that. It’s been the core mechanic of gaming since many of the earliest titles. Conflict is inherently competitive, and thus lends itself nicely to being a “game”. Non-violence, however, is a more tricky prospect. What’s the point of a game if there’s no world to save, no princess to rescue and no Big Bad to kick the bottom of?

I’m yet to discover exactly what makes Glitch tick, but there’s a lot of people playing who seem to enjoy it, so I’m willing to give it a chance. If nothing else, its non-violent nature should hopefully mean it’s free of the sort of people who use words like “noobfags” and “stfu”. And the whole “freeform” thing has been working pretty well for Minecraft, so why shouldn’t it work for a 2D browser-based MMO platformer where there’s nothing to kill? Granted, Glitch is not quite as freeform as Minecraft, though its RPG-like elements (such as learning skills) are stronger. It’s not really a good comparison at all, thinking about it, save for the fact that both games are fundamentally pointless but compelling wastes of time that are inexplicably popular with hundreds, thousands, millions of people.

I shall be giving Glitch a bit more of a go over the next few days and weeks. I shall be sure to report back if I do happen to find anything interesting.

#oneaday, Day 561: Rusty Water

I’ve been playing the stupidly-named Rusty Hearts since the closed beta started at the end of last month. The game caught my eye during E3, when publisher Perfect World announced that they would be taking the free to play genre up a notch with three titles that featured the level of polish one would typically expect from a commercial title.

I was skeptical, of course — everyone was. “Free to play” does, after all, to many people, mean “not as good as a ‘real’ game”. But still Rusty Hearts held some sort of fascination for me. I can’t quite pin down what it was — perhaps it was the cel-shaded art style, perhaps it was the fact it didn’t sound like another WoW clone, or perhaps I was simply just curious. Whatever it was, it meant that as soon as the opportunity to sign up for the closed beta came around, I was straight in there and sent a code almost immediately.

Now the closed beta is here and I’ve been playing a while, my fascination was, I believe, warranted. Because it’s a good game. Not “good for a free to play game”, not “good, but I’d rather play something I paid for”. No; it’s simply a good game that I would like to play more of — and will.

Why is it good? Well, there’s a variety of factors in play. The aforementioned cel-shaded art style is one of them. It looks good, particularly the characters. The backgrounds aren’t the best in the world but they’re in keeping with the stylised aesthetic. Animations are decent and done with a large amount of Japanese-style visual flair to make things look more exciting. Sword impacts are accompanied by huge flashy “swoosh” effects, every scene transition is done with an effect that looks like claws ripping across the screen and the whole thing is pleasingly “arcadey” in its presentation.

Which brings us nicely onto the way it plays. World of Warcraft it ain’t, unlike several of Perfect World’s other titles. Sure, you have a hotbar at the bottom of the screen and health bars at the top left. But that’s where the similarity ends — this is a full-on Streets of Rage/Golden Axe-style brawler given a next-gen coat of paint and put online. Couple this with a Devil May Cry-esque “style points” system, end-level rankings and skill-based techniques with the word “Just” in them and you’ve got a very endearingly console-style game with the depth of a PC title. This is very much a Good Thing.

Konami must be kicking themselves about now, though, because the game is essentially Castlevania Online, right down to the awesome techno-rock soundtrack. Here’s the plot: there’s a big castle, and somewhere within it is a Bad Dude called Vlad. He has a servant called Death. It’s up to a plucky band of supernaturally-inclined heroes, some of whom may or may not be witches and vampires, to save the day by beating seven shades of shit out of everything stupid enough to cross their path. Sound familiar? It should; Rusty Hearts is pretty shameless in its inspiration. That’s no bad thing, though — the game works well and if Konami aren’t going to make a game like this then someone else might as well.

I haven’t got that far yet — my character is just level 9, but I’m into the castle proper now after what appears to have been a series of lengthy training quests. The difficulty has ramped up noticeably and, unlike the early levels, it may become necessary to team up with other players to take on some of the subsequent challenges. I’m looking forward to trying out cooperative play — so far solo play has been satisfying and fun, but I can imagine fighting alongside teammates will be fun in a different way. It remains to be seen what the community is like.

Rusty Hearts‘ closed beta is active right now — I’m not sure when it finishes, but characters and progress will be wiped at that point. Any cash items players might have purchased when that happens will be refunded to their account, so players won’t lose any money that they’ve invested into the game. If anyone’s curious to try it out for themselves, somewhere in my inbox I have two spare beta codes going — not sure if you can still use them now the beta’s started, but if you’re interested in giving it a shot, just let me know and I’ll send one over for you. First come, first served.

#oneaday Day 512: Freebie-Jeebies

Free to play games are here to stay, it seems, with Steam launching a dedicated category for the little buggers today — complete with Achievement support and Steam-powered microtransactions.

With that in mind, I’ve decided I’m going to delve into some of them and try to determine if any of them are actually any good. A lot of people hear the words “free to play” and assume it’s going to be some lame-ass Facebook game with no gameplay whatsoever (seriously, I played one earlier that literally gave you experience points for doing nothing at all) but in actual fact, there’s a surprisingly rich range of titles on offer out there.

I’ve just spent about half an hour with Spiral Knights from SEGA. This one appealed because of a recommendation from a friend, the most excellent CampfireBurning, who described it as a cross between Zelda and Phantasy Star Online. This sounded like an excellent combination of awesomeness, so I set Steam to downloading while I did some work.

It’s a small download — less than a gig (when did that become “small”?) — and works on both PC and Mac. It has endearingly simplistic graphics that will likely run smoothly on absolutely anything and, unlike many other F2P titles, understands widescreen resolutions. It also has a pleasantly chiptuney sort of soundtrack, a straightforward control system and a no-nonsense approach to getting you into a party for some dungeon-delving.

Gameplay is similarly straightforward. You have a sword, with which you can slash, and a gun, with which you can pew. The sword does more damage than the gun, but the gun can pew at things that can’t reach you. There are also blocks and bushes that hide coins and hearts, as well as “treasure blocks”, which are self-explanatory.

I’ve only played the tutorial so far so I can’t speak for the variety of the dungeons, but the simple, cartoonish nature of the graphics means that little more than a palette-swap is all that’s really needed to give a level a distinct look — hopefully it offers a little more than that, though, as time goes on.

Hopefully the ease with which these games are apparently going to integrate with Steam will convince a lot more people to check them out. And the fact Steam has introduced a full free to play section should mean we get a lot more of these games on Steam, too, bringing them to a potentially huge audience. The future’s bright for people who don’t like paying for things but also don’t want to pirate them!

I’m going to spend a bit of time with Spiral Knights and then post some more detailed thoughts in the very near future. After that, I’m going to investigate APB Reloaded and World of Tanks. Any other suggestions for free to play excellence?

#oneaday, Day 224: Patch Notes

Thank you for continuing to play Life. We are pleased to announce that Patch 2.0 is almost ready for release. It is currently awaiting approval from Apple, and we hope to have it available to all users very soon.

While you wait, here is a list of the exciting new features you can soon be enjoying from your Life experience.

Quick-Save. The most-requested feature is finally here! Are you about to get yourself into a situation which you’re a little concerned about the outcome of? No matter! Simply press the Quick-Save button (assigned to your genitals by default) and, should things not go the way you intend, you can simply try again! Please note: there are certain situations when the Quick-Save command will be unavailable. Please ensure your brain has enough free space for the save data before using the Quick-Save function.

Difficulty Adjustment. Some users have commented that Life is too easy or too difficult for them. As such, we have added a difficulty slider to the main menu (accessible by closing your eyes for five seconds and then coughing). If life’s getting you down a bit, simply drop back the difficulty slider for a while and enjoy increased fame and fortune for less effort. Similarly, if you’re enjoying the trappings of wealth a little too much, simply bump up the difficulty slider to increase the number of scandals you’ll encounter. Please note: Adjusting the difficulty slider will affect the experience points gained.

RealID. We’ve added a facility where once you know a person’s name and have added them to your Friends List (assigned to that notebook in your dusty old chest of drawers by default) you will never forget their name ever again thanks to a handy pop-up over their head. You will also see all contact information they have made available and be able to track them via GPS. Please note: GPS tracking is not intended for use by stalkers. Misuse of this facility will be punishable by account suspension.

Common Sense. Long-time subscribers will receive an exclusive “Common Sense” special ability. When entering a situation which is potentially dangerous, illegal and/or stupid, a large red flashing sign will appear saying “STOP IT”. It will continue to flash until the user removes themself from the situation in question. Please note: the “Common Sense” ability will not be automatically available to anyone who has been a subscriber for less than 25 years. They are, however, able to obtain it via questing.

Chat Filters. Another oft-requested feature, the Chat Filter facility will allow users to filter out any or all of the following depending on their own personal preferences: Profanity, blasphemy, religious fanaticism, racism, homophobia, tolerance, sexism, corporate jargon and foreign languages. These phrases can either be muted or automatically replaced via a seamless automatic translation algorithm. For example, when the corporate jargon filter is activated, the sentence “Let’s table this then bluesky and run it up the flagpole for mind-showering purposes whilst leveraging our monetization strategies in the name of excellence” is replaced by “BULLSHIT”.

Item Rebalancing. Coffee now restores twice as many MP. Brussels Sprouts still cause flatulence and nausea, but no longer restore any HP, thereby making them more of a novelty item than an unpleasant healing item. HP Sauce now works as intended by fully restoring HP upon consumption of an entire bottle. Kit-Kat Chunky may no longer be equipped as a weapon. Jaffa Cakes now add the Happiness effect, which stacks up to ten times.

New Dungeon. Haunted by the past? Jump into the new Personal Demons solo dungeon and fight against your worst fears. The new dungeon is only accessible at night and features our toughest boss encounters yet! Please note: Players are not able to take party or raid members into the Personal Demons dungeon.

Adjustable Day Length. Not enough time to complete all your Daily Quests? Simply pop into the Main Menu and extend the day by up to 48 hours.

Graphical Enhancements. A new “Tango” slider enables users blinded by the bright orangeness of those making use of the Fake Tan item to tone down this effect.

Social Networking. Now you can share everything you do via both Facebook and Twitter completely automatically. No longer will players need to make use of “Computer” or “Phone” items in order to inform other users that they are going to the toilet or having lunch. Please note: No responsibility will be accepted for quests failed due to inadvertent tweets/Facebook updates from places/people you are not supposed to be in.

Thank you for your continued support of Life. We hope to have the Version 2.0 patch rolled out as soon as possible. It’s been many years in the making and we think you’ll be really pleased with it.

One A Day, Day 6: LOADING…

I’m writing this while I’m waiting for BitMob’s idiosyncratic blog editing software, MyBlog, to load. The tag database on BitMob is now so big that it takes 2-3 minutes to load the editor now. It was irritating the first time it happened, but I’m sort of used to it now. You quickly get into the habit of doing something else while it loads. And talking of BitMob, if you haven’t checked out my “Bayonetta as a text adventure” article over there yet, go take a look. People who have read it seem to dig it, so thank you so much to those of you who have read, commented and retweeted it. There will be more along those lines sometime soon.

Today has been a pleasurably useless day. Got up late, played a bit of Demon’s Souls, including beating the second boss first time thanks to the assistance of a phantom I summoned in to assist. That is a fantastic feature – players being able to mark themselves as available for assistance, and other players being able to “borrow” them to help them through tough sections. It’s a nice idea, and the fact the other player enters your world as a phantom at least goes some way to justifying the difficulty in voice chatting on the PS3. Sort of.

Then I had lunch and played a bit more of Star Trek Online. The open beta is coming to an end soon, and they’ve unlocked the other sectors and removed the level cap for now. The intrepid Mike Minotti took an expedition over to Deep Space Nine and immediately suffered an intense nerdgasm. I’m looking forward to seeing it for myself – going to play a little more tonight. Cryptic have done a great job of creating an MMO that’s a little bit different from all the me-too WoW clones out there. Ground combat is a little more fast-paced than most MMOs, while space combat is just magnificent, particularly when you’re working with other players.

Then I went for a run. For those of you who were asking about the site I mentioned a few days ago, this is it. I’ve done two of the first week’s workouts this week, and need to fit my other one in tomorrow to keep on schedule. Should be eminently doable though. My current “pace” is to run for 60 seconds, walk for 90 seconds, then run again, then walk again, and so on. It works, and I felt like I could have kept going for a little longer than the just-under-30-minutes I did today. It’s definitely better to do it like that rather than attempt to keep running, running, running and become completely demoralised when you realise you can’t do it, gasping for breath after a few hundred yards. And when I say “you” I, of course, mean “I”. Want to see my route? Here. Gotta love the iPhone.

So this evening will be more of the same, I imagine. Planning on hitting up Star Trek Online for a bit more space-based entertainment in a little while, though I have a rough idea for an article on BitMob to fiddle around with first.

Have a fine and pleasant evening, y’all.