Diablo 3 Beta – A Quick Look

So, the Diablo 3 open Beta Weekend is over, and I am no longer able to play it (thanks for never giving me a real beta invite, Blizzard). However, I did play it almost nonstop while it was available, and so I have gathered my thoughts and impressions together in this post. Please keep in mind that the Beta only covered 1/3 of Act 1 and 13 possible levels, so this is basically only the tip of a much, much larger game.

The Classes

D3 brings only 5 classes to the table, less than D2, but each of them had their own similarities to D2 classes, with some new things thrown in. The Barbarian returns as the incredibly destructive melee hero, skilled in cutting swaths through enemies and grinding hordes of mobs to paste in seconds. He actually felt extremely overpowered in the beta, and at no point did I have trouble playing him. He’s pretty close to his D2 counterpart, but more focused on cleaving and attacking groups. The Wizard is the quintessential elemental spellcaster, with lots of AoE effects than slow and snare enemies, and is very squishy in combat. I found that the wizard was very weak in the beta, especially compared to some of the the things the other classes were doing. I imagine the class is stronger at higher levels, just like in D2.

The Demon Hunter played like any kind of archer with traps you can think of, and I wasn’t too excited about it, even though it was cool to watch. All of the DH’s moves have style. I’m hoping that’s also a class that also gets better with time, because it look like it had potential. Unfortunately, due to some server issues (lots of those this weekend, since it was a stress test), I wasn’t able to try Monk or Witch Doctor much, but I have gathered that the Monk is very much like a Paladin, and the Witch Doctor has summons, like a Necromancer. Every class has a primary stat, Strength, Dexterity, or Intelligence, and it’s a very easy system to use. Also, unlike D2, each class can be either gender.

The best memories never stand a chance

I’m going to take a bit of a break from Super Paper Mario, and try to talk about things that are fun or interesting. Today, I want to address nostalgia, and its role in both new and old games. Think of your favorite scenes from anything you’ve watched, played, or otherwise experienced. It could be a scene that was profoundly sad, or exciting, or funny, or just notable in it’s uniqueness, but whatever the reason, you remember it, and it will be in your brain forever. Everyone has these, and it’s good to have your own frame of reference. The thing is, these memories will become unfocused over time, it’s just how human brains work. We’ll keep recalling them, and each time we’ll make it seem more significant, or more essential. We tend to build up these memories, past their actual worth. It’s why I still think of the scene from Final Fantasy 7 when I want to recall a sad death, or the scene from Chrono Trigger when I want to think of a joyful reunion. Some musical tracks (like this one from EarthBound) can conjure up an entire game for me, and even the best finales don’t compare to the end of Cowboy Bebop (no, not a video game, sorry!).

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door (2004)

Paper Mar: TTYD is a sequel in style and gameplay to the original Paper Mario. The graphics are better (but everything is still paper), the controls are smoother, and the locations are even more varied and interesting than ever. Besides the staple Mario cast, it features a unique cast of distinct and quirky characters. It really feels like a Paper Mario 2.0, and I think it is an improvement in almost every way. Besides the whole paper world thing, the main gimmick of this game is that fights are now done on a stage, where you can gain or lose audience appeal and even receive help (or hindrance) from audience members. If you have enough appeal, you can cast certain spells. It plays on the fact that the whole world knows Mario, and it makes it a fun part of the story.

Paper Mario (2001)

The original Paper Mario should be considered a spiritual successor to Super Mario RPG. It doesn’t have any of the unique characters or locations that appeared in SMRPG, and the art is totally different, but the plot is very similar, and it is also a turn-based story and character-focused game set in the Mario universe. I’m willing to call that close enough.

Paper Mario’s main gimmick is that everything is well…paper. You see almost everything from the front, but when people or objects are turned on their sides, they become nearly invisible lines. Also, there are many points in the game where holes appear in the backdrop, fire is used to burn away objects, and obstacles unfold as if they were made by a master in origami. It’s cute and silly and gives the world a unique feeling. You are a 2d being traversing a 3d world filled with 2d everything.

This week – Mario RPGs

This week, I want to take you on a journey through a series that – up until the latest installment – was one of my favorites. I want to focus on the Paper Mario games, but to do that, I need to plow through Super Mario RPG first. I like the game, and have a lot to say about it, but I am forced to acknowledge that there are literally hundreds of reviews done on it, and most of them done by people who are intimately familiar with the game, and fanatical to the extreme. So, I’m going to try to be as interesting and to-the-point as I can, while attempting to avoid the intense hatred that doing a review on a game this old can garner.Please note that there will be spoilers… for this 15 year old game.

Where I’m coming from

I enjoyed writing up Wednesday’s post and thinking objectively about the subject of characters in game design. I still have a lot to say on that topic, and on the other aspects of storycraft, so I thought it would only be fair to share some games that I felt satisfied all the necessary requirements to make a really good game, and then some. Before I continue talking about characters, story, gameplay, and art design, you need to know where I’m coming from. Everyone does lists of Top 5, and while 5 is a very arbitrary number, I think it works for me too. If you want, I can always add a 6th later, and we can pretend that it’s a Pokemon team.

I want to preface this by noting how few old games are in the list. This is likely because of my continuous efforts to try to find and enjoy things that are new. I rarely go back and play old games now, but I did play a lot of the good ones when I was a child, so I don’t believe I am too biased. Anyways, let’s jump into this entirely self-serving list. If you don’t want to listen to me gush about a few really good games, you can skip today. I won’t be offended. Also, I never mail scorpions to people.

The Elements of a Good Game: Characters – Part 1

I spend an inordinate amount of time thinking about what makes various games popular, what makes various games good, and how these two things interact and are related. I have come to the conclusion that I don’t care about what makes a game popular, but I am interested in quality works of creativity. I hate to try to fence quality into neat little categories, but I do tend to think about it in four very broad terms. When it comes right down to it, I think games can be held up and viewed as a competent work only when they satisfy all four of these basic elements. Characters, Story, Gameplay, and Art Design can each prop a game up, but only with them together can a good game be made. You won’t ever see me giving a game scores based on any of these elements, but I like to look at each one and say how the game did, pointing out what was good and what could be improved.

Today, I just want to talk about one of these: Characters. Characters are one of the first things we will care about when put into a game, and often the success of the whole experience will live or die based on the likability of the main cast, and ESPECIALLY the player character or characters. When we’re given control of a character in order to experience a story, it is important that we can relate to them. That doesn’t mean that they have to look or sound like us, or even have much in common with us. What it means is that we need to understand their motivations, their beliefs and goals, and how they respond to situations. Their actions need to make sense to us most of the time, and we should be able to see why they do what they do.

Sick Day

Today I’m a bit under the weather, and not the even the good kind where you stay home and play video games all day (I miss you, years of formal education!). I didn’t want to leave radio silence, so I’ll just say that I’m planning special posts for Wednesday and Friday, to make up for this horrible catastrophe.

Until then, I recommend this free dungeon-crawly platformer game: Spelunky!

It’s simple and fun and makes for quick, short games. It’s an amazing time-waster.

Recent History – Counter-Strike

I chose Counter-Strike for today’s post for several reasons, but the most important one is that it is simple. It is not a very complex game, and I posit that finding a more bare-bones online FPS is nigh impossible. I also chose it because I have a lot of experience with it, and because I think it makes a nice contrast to TF2 as a whole. Comparing it to TF2 is like comparing an apple to a masterfully prepared turkey: both are good, but one is significantly more complicated. I didn’t choose Halo, or Battlefield, or Call of Duty, or any of those others for this reason, because while they may be less complex than TF2, they are still more complex than Counter Strike.

Counter-Strike has been around for over a decade, and even though ostensibly I am talking about Counter-Strike source, almost every aspect of CS gameplay is constant throughout every iteration, the graphics are really the biggest changes.

A Look Back – Team Fortress Classic

Team Fortress Classic is the direct predecessor to TF2, released in 1999. It was, in fact, made by the same people, and in many ways does inform the setting and gameplay of TF2. However, and I do not say this lightly about a game, TFC was terrible. I don’t mean that it was terrible in a way that relates to the actual game’s intent, though, or any facts about the thought process that went in to making the game. No, it was a competent team-based game, one of the first FPS games to have different classes, and had graphics that were on-par with the time, if that matters to you. TFC was terrible because of what it did to competitive gaming, and it will continue to be a terrible memory for all of history, until humanity purges all traces of it from its collective knowledge. TFC represents an aspect of online play that I despise.

I’ve gotten ahead of myself, though. Let’s start over. Forget that stuff for now.