Herein follows a half arsed review. You have been warned.
In the years of my inactivity upon this dusty web covered sudo-diary I found myself considering the nature of sociability.
That is to say the way we perceive the world through our upbringing and interaction with other people. I will admit, before a certain point was reached my interaction with these 'other people' were limited and honestly pretty pitiful. Yet even I shut off and awkward as I was knew not to be an arsehole to people and to generally be a nice person.
This message has apparently been missed by the residence of Columbia. A good thing too or else we wouldn't have the latest in the Bioshock series.
Bioshock: Infinite takes a different aproch from it's predecessor titles. Not only happening in a different city (This one flies!) but also a different universe. There is no Rapture in this game, no Adam, no Little Sisters and Big Daddies, no 'sploysers' or whatever the phonetics are.
No, all of that has been done away with, gone are the dripping tunnels, the dark interiors, the genetically mutated inhabitance, no cameras and no hacking minigame. There is a lighthouse at least so we can be thankful of that.
The changes made to the game don't quite stop there. Your character (Booker DeWit) talks and has a personality. A welcome change from the past silent protagonists. What's more he's kinda a bad guy.
The games themes have changed drastically, no longer is it an examination of Objectivism (the creed of Andrew Ryan) But instead looks upon secularism, cultism, racism, redemption and rebirth and in some respects fate vs free will. It covers a lot, but the game takes it in it's stride. Impressive given that there's no clear moral ground for anyone to stand on. We root for Booker, he's our viewpoint, we want him to succed. But morally speaking he's just as bad as everyone else in the game.
The only innocent is Elisabeth, in many respects we look to hear for a true reaction to everything which is happening. She is our face throughout the game, a reflection of the emotions we as players feel. But interestingly enough, Booker isn't spared from her feelings. She reviles our avatar as much as she does everything and everyone else. The only difference is that Booker is offering her a way out. Freedom as opposed to manipulation. Elisabeth helps Booker, but only because he is the lesser of two evils.
Musings of the themes aside, Elisabeth makes for a great companion, unlocking doors, finding cash and ammo and supplies for you. She doesn't even have a health bar, instead keeping her head down when the fighting get's going. She is honestly the best NPC companion I've ever seen in a game and I hope that other games take note. Additionally her other mechanic (Which I won't go into for spoiler reasons) actually makes her useful in combat situations, and has the benefit of explaining in universe occurrences without making it all seem like a game mechanics. It's very well done and I'd love to see it explored more.
Elisabeth isn't the only good thing about this game. The environments are very pretty and a hugely welcome change to the dankness of Rapture. The NPCs that we meet along the way (Especially the lady and Gent, those two are amazingly good fun) ether through face to face confrontation or the audio diaries we find range from the sympathetic to the downright evil. But never cartoonish, just human.
Even with the occasional minor backtracking you'll do to complete some of the sidequests. The gameplay never stales, your madcap dash across this city in the sky makes sure you're never in a place long enough to get board. It is bright and open and fast. Everything feels like a rush, this isn't a slow methodical plod through a dying civilisation, this is a sprint to escape from a very much alive and very angry swarm of wasps.
Wasps with fireballs and a flying city.
The tonics and Plasmids have been replaced with Vigors. Thematically the same but diffrent in their uses. Nearly all of the powers have a second ability right from the get go and none of the Vigors work like the Plasmids. For example, Fire Plasmid: Burst of flame at a place or single target. Fire Vigor: Throw a flaming grenade of magma which expodes for AoE flames for all.
All of the Vigors have some utility or trap mechanism, and upgrades are limited to two purchase, some form of power boost, or an aid which'll do different things, like increase effect time, or lower the cost of use. Additionally, due to there being no Adam, upgrades and new Vigors are payed for with cash. The same cash used to upgrade your guns and purchase bullets and supplies.
This brings up an interesting quandary while playing, do you prioritise your gun's and upgrade them first? Or do you focus on your powers? It's impossible to get both and remain as effective as a focused playstyle. This question is especially as important as you can only carry two guns at a time. Though your upgrades are carried over if you drop one gun in favour of another.
No longer are you armed for all occasions, carrying every gun in existance. Now it's a matter of practicality. 'I could take the RPG, but it doesn't have much ammo, maybe the carbine would be better?'. Additionally tonics have been done away with in favour of magical clothing which does stuff when you wear it. This "Gear" is found scattered about and can do a variety of useful things such as increasing the clip size on all your weapons by 75%, or setting guys on fire when you hit them in melee.
Bioshock: Infinite has been parred down in many respects. But each change has added to the game rather than taken it away. It's fast paced gameplay, interesting narrative, and fascinating setting will keep you skyhooked. Certainly an improvement on Bioshock 2
Friday, 5 April 2013
Tuesday, 2 April 2013
A return to the printing press.
Oh man... this old thing.
It's been a while since I've had any use out of this blog. A shame really, but it's an old habit of mine, picking something up, enjoying it, putting time and occasionally effort into it. Then loosing interest and never really going back to it.
But I'm bored, so what the hell.
Interests have changed of the years since I last posted any updates, educations were completed, friends were found and the world went into an economic meltdown which only seems to get worst with every passing week. Leaving thousands, maybe even millions destitute and ensuring that nothing will ever be the same again.
I could say something pithy and oh so witty, but all the good lines have already been taken by people far cleverer and more tuned in to Global economical events and the ever increasing socio-political fall out which surounds them like a cloud of flies on a corpse. So I'll talk about something which interests me instead.
For the past few years I've become something of a Role Play fan. Role Play being dungeons and dragons as opposed to sexy nurses/teachers/police officers in the bedroom. This is an important distinction to make early on or otherwise you're all going to start thinking that my sex life is very odd indeed.
Recently I've been spending much of my time exploring the many and varied Splats put out by White Wolf. Primarily in it's New World of Darkness lines, (henceforth referred to as NWoD) these range from the typical big three of Vampire, Wearwolf, and Mage. To the smaller games of Hunter (Supernatural the RPG), Changeling (People who escaped from imprisonment by fairies), Promithian (Frankinstines monster gives you cancer), Geist (I don't even know how to explain this one), and a new upcoming edition to the world.
Mummy.
Mummy: the Curse to give it it's full title, involves, shockingly, Mummys. As they attempt to fulfil the needs and whims of their dark gods, remember who they were, keep their Cult happy, and generally fuck up anyone who gets in their way. Of which they are really good at.
White Wolf have changed up the game plan with Mummy. As opposed to the previous lines wherein the players would be persistently active within the game world, Mummys (Mummies?) only wake up when certain conditions are met. Spending the rest of the time sleeping in their tombs and being tended to by their cults. Said conditions range from Peeps breaking in and nicking stuff, the Cult waking you up or the stars being right. This conditions are pretty convenient plot hooks for your players to sink their teeth into right off the bat, and the system actually rewards payers who work towards the goal as opposed to just fucking about and not getting anything done.
It does this via a reversal of the usual progression of power most NWoD players go through. Every supernatural has a stat related to measuring the innate power which makes them what they are. In the vampires case this is 'Blood potency' or with the Werewolf it is referred to as 'Primal Urge'. These Powerstats universally begin at 1/10 giving the player plenty of time to become familiar with the mechanics of their character before taking them (in some cases) to godhood.
Mummy: the Curse starts it's characters with a Powerstat of 10/10. Making a freshly arisen character one of the most potent supernatural creatures on the planet. But here's the catch, their Powerstat, called Sekhem (roughly translated to 'life energy' I think) slowly drops as time goes on. Giving Mummies limited tenure to do what they gotta do. Fucking about will make it lower faster, cutting time between each separate Decent role. Where as working towards your goal and pleasing the Gods will grant you a reset to the counter before the next Decent role comes along. The degeneration will inevitably happen there's no two ways about it, but doing what you're supposed to be will let you stay at the top tiers that much longer.
In another reversal the Morality stat is replaced with Memory and starts you off at the bottom of the gauge as opposed to the top. In this case Memory represents how much of their existance the Mummy can remember. The lower it is the less they can remember, but the easier it is to tear a guy limb from limb and not feel all guilty over it.
Both of these changes gives the game an interesting new flavour, and has the added bonus of focusing the players on what's important to the campain. They can go off and do their own thing by all means, but don't go crying to the GM when your Sekhem starts dropping like a stone. Sekhem is also be spent for a number of other things, such as repairing Aggravated damage on the fly, or restoring all used Willpower dots. It's useful but risky tactic that can bring a Mummy closer to their end, but be the very thing they need to complete their objective.
I haven't mentioned Utterances and Affinities, well these are the powers granted to the Mummies. Affinities are small traits which can give the Arisen some cool little powers. Like seeing ghosts, being amazing at parkour, or punching through a bank vault door. The Affinities also have a quality which I'll talk about later but for right now I'm focusing on the positive.
Utterances are the bigger magical powers. Crazy shit like breathing fire, summoning swarms of Scarabs, or... I don't know... BEING THE STAR WHICH LEAD THE THREE WISE MEN TO BETHLEHEM AND THE ANGEL WHO APPEARED TO THE SHEPHERDS.
THAT IS A THING.
THAT YOU CAN DO.
I fucking love it!
Some of the Utterances are bible inspired (Like the one which let's you part bodies of water), where as others are inspired by film and TV (making sand storms eat people). There's a lot of variety and pretty much all of them do some really cool things.
The actual progression of the powers is pretty unique as well and ties into my next point. When you get an Utterance you have three 'tiers'. Each one does something different all of them have their uses. Unlike the normal powers in NWoD, you only need to buy an Utterance once. As long as you meet the requirements for the next tier you can cast it. Meaning that clever players will plot out their purchases ahead of time to take maximum advantages of their pillars.
Oh yeah, Pillars.
The Mummies have a thing called a "Five part soul" each part represented by one of the five Pillars. Ab (Heart), Ba (Spirit) Ka (Essence) Ren (Name) Sheut (Shadow). Mummies can have up to five levels in each pillar. These Pillar points are used to fuel their abilities, from stat boosts, to improved healing, powering Utterances, and activating Relics. Unlike other Supernaturals a Mummies max pool is twenty five Pillar Points, so five dots in each pillar. However the relatively low cost of the Mummies abilities makes that a very minor problem. The level of the individual Pillars is used to work out which Tiers have been unlocked on the Utterences. So expect a Mummy with a lot of Pillars to be able to throw around a lot of moves.
The thing is, that while you might start out with access to the cool awesome powers and shit tone of Pillar points. The slow inevitable decline of your Sekhem stat will eventually hit a point where it will start to lower your statistical maximums. Your attributes, skills, Pillars, and by extension your Utterances and affinities will ether be capped or disappear completely, loosing you access to your cool shit as your overall power weakens.
But the powers aren't lost, you simply don't have enough energy to fuel them. And thankfully there are ways to get it back. The primary being, break the things the gods what you to get in the first place. The world is littered with Artefacts, objects containing Sekrem granting them strange abilities. It is these Artefacts that the Mummy is occasionally woken up to find. For the most part grabbing it and stuffing it inside your tomb works for your fickle gods. However, if you fancy some more time running about the mortal world, or theres that one guy you really want to kill before you go and have your nap, you can drink Sekhem from the Artefacts and re-energize yourself.
This comes with it's own dangers, creating horrific monsters, weakening or destroying the artefact, and pissing of your god. Which is a very bad idea. Do it enough and he might just wake up some other mummies to come and stomp your face in. They're kinda dicks like that.
Speaking of getting your face stomped in I've yet to talk endlessly about the unique enemies that Mummy brings to the table. But I suppose that that and the background details can wait for another time. This is pretty long as it it.
So stay tuned for part two, where in I talk about the bad guys, the setting, and maybe even how to integrate Mummies into other NWoD games.
It's been a while since I've had any use out of this blog. A shame really, but it's an old habit of mine, picking something up, enjoying it, putting time and occasionally effort into it. Then loosing interest and never really going back to it.
But I'm bored, so what the hell.
Interests have changed of the years since I last posted any updates, educations were completed, friends were found and the world went into an economic meltdown which only seems to get worst with every passing week. Leaving thousands, maybe even millions destitute and ensuring that nothing will ever be the same again.
I could say something pithy and oh so witty, but all the good lines have already been taken by people far cleverer and more tuned in to Global economical events and the ever increasing socio-political fall out which surounds them like a cloud of flies on a corpse. So I'll talk about something which interests me instead.
For the past few years I've become something of a Role Play fan. Role Play being dungeons and dragons as opposed to sexy nurses/teachers/police officers in the bedroom. This is an important distinction to make early on or otherwise you're all going to start thinking that my sex life is very odd indeed.
Recently I've been spending much of my time exploring the many and varied Splats put out by White Wolf. Primarily in it's New World of Darkness lines, (henceforth referred to as NWoD) these range from the typical big three of Vampire, Wearwolf, and Mage. To the smaller games of Hunter (Supernatural the RPG), Changeling (People who escaped from imprisonment by fairies), Promithian (Frankinstines monster gives you cancer), Geist (I don't even know how to explain this one), and a new upcoming edition to the world.
Mummy.
Mummy: the Curse to give it it's full title, involves, shockingly, Mummys. As they attempt to fulfil the needs and whims of their dark gods, remember who they were, keep their Cult happy, and generally fuck up anyone who gets in their way. Of which they are really good at.
White Wolf have changed up the game plan with Mummy. As opposed to the previous lines wherein the players would be persistently active within the game world, Mummys (Mummies?) only wake up when certain conditions are met. Spending the rest of the time sleeping in their tombs and being tended to by their cults. Said conditions range from Peeps breaking in and nicking stuff, the Cult waking you up or the stars being right. This conditions are pretty convenient plot hooks for your players to sink their teeth into right off the bat, and the system actually rewards payers who work towards the goal as opposed to just fucking about and not getting anything done.
It does this via a reversal of the usual progression of power most NWoD players go through. Every supernatural has a stat related to measuring the innate power which makes them what they are. In the vampires case this is 'Blood potency' or with the Werewolf it is referred to as 'Primal Urge'. These Powerstats universally begin at 1/10 giving the player plenty of time to become familiar with the mechanics of their character before taking them (in some cases) to godhood.
Mummy: the Curse starts it's characters with a Powerstat of 10/10. Making a freshly arisen character one of the most potent supernatural creatures on the planet. But here's the catch, their Powerstat, called Sekhem (roughly translated to 'life energy' I think) slowly drops as time goes on. Giving Mummies limited tenure to do what they gotta do. Fucking about will make it lower faster, cutting time between each separate Decent role. Where as working towards your goal and pleasing the Gods will grant you a reset to the counter before the next Decent role comes along. The degeneration will inevitably happen there's no two ways about it, but doing what you're supposed to be will let you stay at the top tiers that much longer.
In another reversal the Morality stat is replaced with Memory and starts you off at the bottom of the gauge as opposed to the top. In this case Memory represents how much of their existance the Mummy can remember. The lower it is the less they can remember, but the easier it is to tear a guy limb from limb and not feel all guilty over it.
Both of these changes gives the game an interesting new flavour, and has the added bonus of focusing the players on what's important to the campain. They can go off and do their own thing by all means, but don't go crying to the GM when your Sekhem starts dropping like a stone. Sekhem is also be spent for a number of other things, such as repairing Aggravated damage on the fly, or restoring all used Willpower dots. It's useful but risky tactic that can bring a Mummy closer to their end, but be the very thing they need to complete their objective.
I haven't mentioned Utterances and Affinities, well these are the powers granted to the Mummies. Affinities are small traits which can give the Arisen some cool little powers. Like seeing ghosts, being amazing at parkour, or punching through a bank vault door. The Affinities also have a quality which I'll talk about later but for right now I'm focusing on the positive.
Utterances are the bigger magical powers. Crazy shit like breathing fire, summoning swarms of Scarabs, or... I don't know... BEING THE STAR WHICH LEAD THE THREE WISE MEN TO BETHLEHEM AND THE ANGEL WHO APPEARED TO THE SHEPHERDS.
THAT IS A THING.
THAT YOU CAN DO.
I fucking love it!
Some of the Utterances are bible inspired (Like the one which let's you part bodies of water), where as others are inspired by film and TV (making sand storms eat people). There's a lot of variety and pretty much all of them do some really cool things.
The actual progression of the powers is pretty unique as well and ties into my next point. When you get an Utterance you have three 'tiers'. Each one does something different all of them have their uses. Unlike the normal powers in NWoD, you only need to buy an Utterance once. As long as you meet the requirements for the next tier you can cast it. Meaning that clever players will plot out their purchases ahead of time to take maximum advantages of their pillars.
Oh yeah, Pillars.
The Mummies have a thing called a "Five part soul" each part represented by one of the five Pillars. Ab (Heart), Ba (Spirit) Ka (Essence) Ren (Name) Sheut (Shadow). Mummies can have up to five levels in each pillar. These Pillar points are used to fuel their abilities, from stat boosts, to improved healing, powering Utterances, and activating Relics. Unlike other Supernaturals a Mummies max pool is twenty five Pillar Points, so five dots in each pillar. However the relatively low cost of the Mummies abilities makes that a very minor problem. The level of the individual Pillars is used to work out which Tiers have been unlocked on the Utterences. So expect a Mummy with a lot of Pillars to be able to throw around a lot of moves.
The thing is, that while you might start out with access to the cool awesome powers and shit tone of Pillar points. The slow inevitable decline of your Sekhem stat will eventually hit a point where it will start to lower your statistical maximums. Your attributes, skills, Pillars, and by extension your Utterances and affinities will ether be capped or disappear completely, loosing you access to your cool shit as your overall power weakens.
But the powers aren't lost, you simply don't have enough energy to fuel them. And thankfully there are ways to get it back. The primary being, break the things the gods what you to get in the first place. The world is littered with Artefacts, objects containing Sekrem granting them strange abilities. It is these Artefacts that the Mummy is occasionally woken up to find. For the most part grabbing it and stuffing it inside your tomb works for your fickle gods. However, if you fancy some more time running about the mortal world, or theres that one guy you really want to kill before you go and have your nap, you can drink Sekhem from the Artefacts and re-energize yourself.
This comes with it's own dangers, creating horrific monsters, weakening or destroying the artefact, and pissing of your god. Which is a very bad idea. Do it enough and he might just wake up some other mummies to come and stomp your face in. They're kinda dicks like that.
Speaking of getting your face stomped in I've yet to talk endlessly about the unique enemies that Mummy brings to the table. But I suppose that that and the background details can wait for another time. This is pretty long as it it.
So stay tuned for part two, where in I talk about the bad guys, the setting, and maybe even how to integrate Mummies into other NWoD games.
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