Review: Just about over Guild Wars 2

     Some issues that are currently (10/17) killing the game for me...

• Free server transfers
• There is no server community or culture evolving because so many people are jumping from server to server.  A servers identity is composed of its cornerstone guilds and local personalities (like a good pub or bar).
• Not only are so many guilds moving servers, but there isn't really anything that allows a guild to stand out on a server (even if they stayed) other than spamming chat about what they're doing.
• It's been a constant source of exploitation... whether it be people spam transferring for 100% world completion, or transferring repeatedly to farm ore (no longer possible).
• Henge of Denravi is a perfect example.  Ranked #1 in WvW servers until a few key guilds left. Bandwagoners flooded the gates jumping ship to other high ranking WvW servers.  WvW on Henge of Denravi is a ghost town.  The naturally slow decline of a server that would occur with people choosing to reroll at different times didn't happen because they could all just leave immediately.
• World vs. World is in a sad state.
• It's more beneficial to let objectives flip back and forth in a zone rather than holding objectives.
• Individual player names aren't shown from opposition servers... so its a constantly anonymous foe.  Rivalries can't be cultivated against anonymous foes.  I want to see a name from a server rivalry and recognize that name from a previous encounter.
• The disparity between the effectiveness of melee vs. ranged is staggering.  You can't tell the warriors from the rangers from the thieves because everyone has a bow/gun.

• PvE is pathetic.
• 5 man dungeons are a great precursor to larger raids, but when this is given as the end game it gets boring.  You have no reason to run a dungeon more than ~9 times.  (clearing each "wing" and possibly gathering marks for gear/legendary @ 60 marks a run assuming you clear a wing only once a day).
• Doesn't feel like groups actually have to work together to coordinate and accomplish anything.  It always feels like 5 individuals... and there is rarely such a thing as a wipe... you just get to respawn and run right back in.  It's like an instant respawn FPS... against NPCs.
• The Zaithan fight in Arah is some of the saddest most underwhelming shit I've ever seen in MMO PvE.
• The hardest thing in terms of PvE in this game is trying to walk across Cursed Shore or Malchor's Leap where every mob has a stun, a root, a slow, or a pull.  This isn't that annoying when its once in a while but its every... fucking... mob... in... the... zone.  Its just annoying.
• Zombies?  Really?  As if this hasn't been done to death you fill every zone in Orr with zombies. Now, I'm fully aware of the story line and why these zombies exist... but you also had creative control over the story line... and you went with Zombies?  Just... wow...
• Diminishing Returns
• These are intended to make botting less practical, but in reality it only hurts legit players.
• You have to be a piece of shit to farm karma at any reasonable pace... letting the bots and other legit players do the work of actually starting and completing events that you can spend 10 seconds participating in to receive full credit.
• Bots
• Holy shit... ban these?
• sPvP isn't attractive.  ...and I feel no incentive to participate.
• Skins are the only "reward" really?  Why have a high rank?
• No "Guild vs Guild" mode in GUILD WARS?
• No ranking system other than straight grind.  Sad news kids, your Rank doesn't matter.
• I know its Guild Wars' "thing" but I don't like the fact that anyone can roll any class at any time (especially swapping in the middle of a tournament).  sPvP is nothing but learning the fotm spec, learning the current builds, and playing on the most op shit on the right map.
• I think that sPvP being so segregated from everything else in the game detracts from Character Development, which is really a deal-breaker for me in an MMO.
• Crowd Control abilities are too abundant.  Instead of having to tactically use certain abilities at certain times (except for say, interrupting a stomp or applying stability, or fearing) everyone basically spams every root/slow/push/knockdown/grab they have... and there are no diminishing returns on anything.  Unless you build yourself for a constant stream of cleanses you're fucked.  This is not an attractive meta to me.
• Debuffs are applied too liberally, and only one class in the game can capitalize on this (necro).  Most classes breath in a given direction and apply numerous debuffs (bleeds, burning, vulnerability).  Calm this shit down and let people fight?
• Bugs bugs and more bugs.
• Whether its major game breaking Mesmer bugs in WvW/sPvP (ninja keeps? ... ninja lord?)  or minor bugs that prevent you from doing an activity (skill point, jump puzzle)... there are a ton of annoying bugs.

The good?

     I enjoyed exploring the world and getting 100% world completion.  There have been times in WvW and sPvP that I have enjoyed myself... so I believe the game has potential.  I'm going to finish farming my Legendary and see what happens.

Review: Assassin's Creed Brotherhood

Wikipedia

First Impression

     I didn't play any of the Assassin's Creed games prior to this.  I was hoping it would be a stealthy game like Hitman.  I haven't played all the way through A.C.B. yet (couldn't take it) but I can tell you know if you're looking for something like that you won't be getting that from Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

Console Controls

     The PC version of Assassin's Creed Brotherhood began torturing me with its poorly adapted controller layout from the very beginning.  Lets be clear about this, the PC version of this game was an after-thought released to a market it was never intended for.  This control layout might be fine for the console kiddies that only have 4 buttons to press but when you make a game for the PC you don't have to automate every movement.  The game engine attempts to compensate you for your lack of control over the character by automating 80% of actions.  You initiate an action and it interprets what it thinks you want, and executes it for you.  I thought to myself, "No problem I'll just go into the options menu and change the keyboard layout to be something similar to what I've been playing in MMO's for years" but you're not even capable of doing that.

     For some reason Ubisoft decided to assign body parts to single keys, with minimal modifiers (right clicking, shift, etc...) so figuring out the sequences for button mashing reminds me of learning Brutalities back in my Mortal Kombat days.  All actions pertaining to the head (such as a head butt), are on your E key.  All actions pertaining to legs (jumping, and walking faster) are on the space bar (except when you want to run).  To begin an all-out sprint, you've got to right click (run), hold down the space bar (leg button), use your WASD keys to move, and guide your character by moving your mouse.  This must be the equivalent of someone just squeezing the hell out of a console controller, but that is a ridiculous amount of input to get Ezio to run.  My issues with the controls are the biggest, and that them will pop up continually throughout this review.

Combat

     Stealthing around and killing NPC's with your concealed blade is easy enough, and on par with what you would think a stealthy game would offer.  Figuring out basic combat with a sword (blocking and counter attacking) took a Google search for me because its not intuitive at all.  The little help bubbles that pop up hit you in the middle of battle and flash so quickly you've got to shift focus away from staying alive during a fight to read them.  What I learned after having to rely on a search engine (because the in-game how to information is so shit) is that combat is basically a whack-a-mole timing meta-game.

     You right click and move backward to block (which again confuses the hell out of me because right click is supposed to be the button for running) and then as an enemy NPC attacks you have to left click at just the right moment and the rest is automated for you.  You'll parry and counter attack.  Counter attacking could include a combination of moves.  From a single left click you can perform 3 actions automatically.  This is completely shitty because it takes the concept of "playing the game" and shits on it because you're not even involved in 75% of the gameplay.  25% is you doing stuff, the rest is scripted animations.

     Often you'll end up with 10+ npc's with terrible AI running at you and surrounding you, then you panic and mash buttons.  You think its going to be no problem to simply run up to a building and dive into a pile of straw, but when you're on the tops of the buildings everything looks so much alike that you get disoriented trying to figure out where you're at.  When you find that pile of straw sometimes you'll end up jumping off buildings in unintended directions only to fall to your death.

Environment

     The environment is incredibly monotonous.  Every building looks so much alike that you can easily become disoriented.  Bringing up a larger view of the map requires you to press Tab (as opposed to M, which is used for nothing).  When you press tab the game completely pauses and you've got to waste two seconds of your life watching the animations for pausing and unpausing.  This happens a lot because of how disorienting the sameness is all around you.  There is no way-point system for you to mark a location on your map to make your mini-map more informative.

     Every door is closed.  Exploring the insides of houses could have been interesting, but you're confined to the streets and the tops of buildings.  It's a shell of an environment, and I think mostly copied and pasted to generate the overall landscape.

General Game-play

    It's overly grindy for no reason.  Who honestly thinks its fun to run around a monotonous landscape for hours looking for chests of gold or completing mini-quests to become some kind of ancient venture capitalist investing in shops all over Rome (no story is given for why the shops were closed)?

Conclusion

     Don't buy this for the PC.  At 40$ its too pricey for a game that was never designed for the PC.  It feels like it was a last minute decision made by the company to see if they could milk some money out of the PC market.  It definitely doesn't feel like they spent any additional effort on development when they ported this for the PC.  I'll also not be buying the Revelations expansion because it's going to be more of the same.

Review: Portal 2

Wikipedia - Portal 2

tldr

     Portal 2 is a game with a great idea that has a lot of potential to provide a lot of entertainment in the future.  It took me a little over 19 hours to play through the campaign and cooperatively beat all of the multi player content with complete strangers online.

Single Player

     In the single player mode (which I refer to loosely as the "campaign") the story line gets redundant and beside the point very quickly.  The transitions between each test chamber are so recycled it becomes painful to sit through given the number of levels there are in the game.  The puzzles themselves are interesting and enjoyable however, so just remember that this is a Puzzle-Platform style of game and not an Adventure game.  You learn techniques for solving the puzzles cumulatively throughout in a very natural progression.

Overall

     Overall I think its a good buy simply because it's a unique experience, and it occupied 19 hours of time for only $30 on Steam.  Valve will be releasing some modding tools so users can create their own test-chambers and share them, so there will be some replay-ability down the road and maybe some kind of competitive community.  I think its going to be very important that with those modding tools Valve enables users to create their own game mechanics (such as designing the bridge itself, rather than dragging and dropping it onto the chamber).  User generated content is generally more creative and interesting anyway.  It will give the game a lot more vigor.  Valve plans on continuing to release additional test chambers through free downloadable content packs.  Personally, I scoffed when I saw the online shop gearing itself up to service a micro-transaction system because I absolutely hate micro-transactions, but I'm sure there will be some people out there that can't complete their experience of this game without a stupid pink head sock.

http://www.thinkwithportals.com/