Lets Talk about Games Bay-Bee Addressing some...aspersions cast on my ability to discern a good game from a bad one

Sorry, I'm old, Salt n Pepa just popped into my head...google it, lol

So, I finally stopped buying games. YAY for my bank acct. The enitre list is kinda outta hand and on my FB if anyone cares.
But, I have actually been playing games lately too.
what have I played lately?
Fuck if I know, I have gaming ADD and switch games constantly.

I also finally got around to reading the Assassin's Creed novels and am now on The Secret Crusade which is giving me the same trouble the first Assassin's Creed gave me, its fucking boring and I can't stand Altair. I totally ripped through the previous 3 novels but this one I know is gonna take me a while because I have to force myself to read the damn thing.

I will write more on both the AC novels and the games I've played recently but I wanna talk about something else right now. grab some popcorn and get comfy...

Recently I got involved in some BS argument on Raptr because some people don't understand what an opinion is. Why am I bringing this up? because I can, and because it annoys me.

A while back i wrote  review about a game called Realms of Ancient War, a game that was panned by many and has a pretty crap score on Metacritic. If you or the asshole I argued with on Raptr have actually read my review (Here it is!) you will see that I mention the bad reviews. I mention the barebones nature of the game and the non-existant difficulty. I enjoyed the game immensely but I'm not blinded to its faults. I also make note of some games in the same genre that I have played and enjoyed and the flashes of those games that I found within R.A.W.
If you look at said review you will also notice that I wrote it in October, so why the hell this became some jerk's personal crusade NOW is beyond me. If you'd like to read that, knock yourself out.

My beef isn't that someone disagreed with my OPINION. Not the first time, won't be the last. My problem is that this person seemed determined to belittle me by making assumptions and you know what happens when you make assumptions.
Most of his rant is based on my being an "amateur"

Am I an "Amateur" gamer? I don't know, maybe, maybe not. It depends how you quantify Amateur Vs Experienced.

Do you base it on number of games played? 
genres played? 
games completed?
 games where you completed them AND got all achievements if applicable?
Years played?
Consoles played?
Knowledge of the underpinings, engines etc of games? 
Amount of knowledge about the industry in general?

By some of those standards I might be an amateur, by others no.

But I'll address his points here and you be the judge...

• Have you ever played another hack and slash rpg?
• Indeed I have played many and it is mentioned in my review of RAW

•  I watched the trailer and it looked like Diablo 3 kinda, and kinda like Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and I enjoyed both of those so I figured, sure, why the hell not. 




•   I'm not the best person to ask about graphics, they don't matter much to me unless its an absolute eyesore. But this game  was pleasant enough to look at. It very much looked like the old PS2 games I loved, both Dark Alliance games, Norrath, Gauntlet.

(Both Taken from the review of RAW) 


• saying a game is definitely worth $15 but not having any experience before hand on the subject is an amateur move. Because of this you have no idea the core mechanics that this game is missing.
• I believe the above proves my "experience" with the genre

• I advise you just give Torchlight a shot and you will see why this game isn't worth the money.
• This is directly from my Steam list : Torchlight     79.5 hrs on record  Yet I still stand by the fact that *I* personally liked RAW I believe the above proves my "experience" with the genre

• Welcome to the internet if you don't want to be judged by your opinions then you don't make a blog about them
• This is an argument I've seen on every damn site I have ever gone to. You know what? NO, just NO. The fact that something is on the internet doesn't give people the right to treat another person like crap or tell them they can't have an opinion unless they agree with them. yes my blog is public, yes I encourage people to post their comments but this is NOT a democracy, it is still a PERSONAL blog, I don't have to take insulting, belittling comments or be "prepared to be judged". Thankfully most of the people who come here and share their thoughts are intelligent and respectful and I enjoy hearing from you guys both here and on my OMG Facebook
  
  

• The point being not knowing your subject before hand is amateurish.
• I believe the above proves my "experience" with the genre

• Also i've got 20years of gaming
• What did that have to do with anything? But for the record while gaming wasn't something I was very into I've had console sand been playing since 1983

• I'm sure you haven't even heard of Champions of Norrath, Dungeon and Dragons heroes or Baldur's Gate Dark alliance 1 and 2. If you had played those you wouldn't think this was worth the time.

• I want my "real" co-op back. Like, Champions of Norrath. I can't count how many times we've played that.(From a blog post about Co-op gaming)

• I'll say this again in a more polite manner even if i'm being a dick try the demo for torchlight and you will thank me.
• From my Steam Game List:
  Torchlight II
  

  21.9 hrs on record

• Torchlight 2 Beta was pretty great, can't wait for that to come out (From a quick note posted a while back)

• i love how i'm apparently the belittling and insulting one when i've only said one direct insult
• Quotes from his posts: 

• Have you ever played another hack and slash rpg?




• saying a game is definitely worth $15 but not having any experience before hand on the subject is an amateur move. Because of this you have no idea the core mechanics that this game is missing.




• The point being not knowing your subject before hand is amateurish.

• As for not knowing what games you played i had asked if you had played them maybe show a little common courtesy next time when someone asks you a question rather then insulting them.
• I found no reason from the start of the conversation to bother handing a resume of my qualifications or lack thereof. However, much like how I saw he played Counterstrike on his Raptr profile, he just as easily could have informed himself of my own experience in gaming by glancing at mine.

I have never claimed to know more than I do, I have never claimed to be an expert. I am no journalist or a professional reviewer. I review games I enjoy, I list why, I list why not. You read it, you agree or disagree. I'm cool wit that. My problem isnt that he disagreed with me. Its that he wasted both our times with this pointless drama. The situation should have ended when I stated that we were both entitled to our opinion.


Above I posted some questions about the necessary info or lack of it to "rank" someone "Amateur" which I feel is another useless term right up there with "Casual Gamers" and "Hardcore Gamers" and "Fake Geek Girls" and "Real Geek Girls" etc. I'd really love to hear what you guys think of theses things, Leave a comment here or on my Fb (BTW, I feel very guilty that I spend more time in short rants on my OMG FB while taking so long to write here. I do promise I'll be giving some game impressions for my recently played games....if you guys wanna hear them that is.)

Speak Up guys, I don't bite, I promise and I'd love some more viewpoints on this whole crazy Gamer world and its issues.

Review: R.A.W. Realms of Ancient War

Money's been tight lately, really tight. Life has been difficult and stressful and my health has been utter crap. Given these things when I'm looking at games these days I want cheap, fun, easy. I want to kick ass and take names in a way I can't in my everyday life and I wanna do it with minimal stress, difficulty or money.
WTF does this have to do with anything? I dunno, just felt like sharing.

That being said, last week I was looking at the sales on Steam and saw the Sherlock Holmes collection on sale... 6 games $8.74..WOOT! and also some game I've never heard of named Realms of Ancient War for a little over $11.

Action, RPG, ooh Wizard! controller enabled! (I suck at Kb/m) So I read the description...and it was...well where the hell was it? its like 2 damn sentences. Its got some bullet points, something about explosive action blah blah blah. Oh look something about controlling enemies but...no real details. That didnt help much. I went and looked up reviews...it got panned. Somewhere around a 5 or so. But I tend to like the shit everyone says sucks so, that wasnt telling me anything.
Finally I watched the trailer and it looked like Diablo 3 kinda, and kinda like Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance and I enjoyed both of those so I figured, sure, why the hell not.
I picked it up along with the Sherlock Holmes collection and installed it and figured it would probably sit there unplayed with he other 600 games til hell freezes over.

But a few days later a bad day and some curiosity led me to start it. I played about 4 1/2 hours that day and only stopped because my head was pounding. A couple days later I fired it up again and finished it.

Its not a very long game, maybe 10 hours? I don't know, I paused a lot to deal with stuff at home. But even still it manages to feel meaty enough. The game is 25 chapters long with an interesting beginning story and a good satisfying ending, though I couldn't help but feel like while I didn't know the mechanics of HOW it would play out, I had a good inkling of how it would work out, if that makes sense.

You get a choice of 3 standard fantasy characters: Big Burly Barbarian, Evil-Looking Pointy Armoured Wizard with spooky glowy eyes and Half-Naked Elf Rogue Chick.  Not being the burly type and not wanting to be a friggin elf for the bajillionth time combined with my love of fireballs led to me being the Wizard.

I really don't know jack about my character beyond he's a wizard, he carries a book and a crystal ball and he claims to be looking for some sort of artifact. That's it. That's all you get to know about your character. They are looking for a random Macguffin.

So I flung fireballs and force pushed skeletons and picked up rainbow named and colored loot. I gathered enough unnecessary mana potions to fill an olympic swimming pool because my spells didnt take much to cast them and that fireball basic spell can take you through the entire game. There were plenty of skills to choose from, its just that none of them really worked as well as my started set levelled up. Fireballs, force push and  toxic cloud are all you need, maybe a healing spell if you get a little nervous about your health.

And there's one thing I didn't like at first, though by the midway point it no longer mattered. The game has an odd "lives" system. You start with 3 gems called "soul stones" if you are killed you will respawn at the last checkpoint you came across, til you run out of soul stones. Lose all soul stones and its game over. Reload after a game over and you have to redo the entire chapter, even if you were at the last checkpoint when you died. But as I said, that stopped mattering after a while. You get 3 soul stones at the beginning of each chapter with a cap of 9 stones. I ran out of stones at the very beginning thanks to a douchey spider spitting poison once. After that I always had a full set of soul stones and I rarely ended up needing one.

The locations, enemies, etc. are fairly varied and fairly good looking. I'm not the best person to ask about graphics, they don't matter much to me unless its an absolute eyesore. But this game  was pleasant enough to look at. It very much looked like the old PS2 games I loved, both Dark Alliance games, Norrath, Gauntlet.
The story itself is told with voice overs and drawings. The voice-work is good and the drawings quite nice, I especially loved the look of the Elf King. The story is pretty linear and the side quests are minimal.
While the story is linear there is some backtracking and such and sometimes the lack of a minimap can be a pain in the ass, you do have a waypoint arrow but its vague at best. So I had moments of annoyance as i tried to figure out what the hell i missed in order to get door A to open when the waypoint arrow only kept pointing at said door when the person I needed was on the other side of the map.

The game also has a bad habit of suddenly sending out hordes of little jumpy minions that keep spawning out of the ground around you, mobbing you. Something that my poor Wizard couldn't stand up to early on in the game, after all as a wizard he was suitably squishy despite the bitchin' spike armour.

I feel there's something else I'm forgetting...I distract easy..look shiny!
...
...
Oh sorry, there was this like glitter thing on the ground and the sun hit it and...well that's not important right now...
I might have forgotten something and I'll probably think of it after I post this so I'll update it if it comes to me (chances are it will wake me up at 3am).

For now know that its a fun little hack n slash. Not deep, not difficult but enjoyable and very pick up and play. Well worth its non-sale price of $15.
You KNOW me, and my track record with buying, playing, finishing games. For me to buy it, play it and finish it all in the same week, its worth a look at.



Oh oh OH! I remember now!!!

the bulletpoints said that you could take over enemies! Yes! you can! and i forgot because honestly, its a footnote, something you are required to do exactly ONCE and after that it is optional. I did it a few times just for shits and giggles but really, its nothing deeper than a fun trick to do once in a while. Basically sometimes there will be some  BIG enemies, trolls, ents, giant spiders and the like. When a yellow circle is visible under them you can press a button and take over their movements causing them to wreak havoc among their little minions. If you play your cards right you'll kill all their little friends and their little friends will damage him so much you ride him to death. When the enemy dies you get booted back to your own body again. Its fun enough but, its sometimes easier just to go in there and fight than it is to wade through the smaller enemies to control the bigger one. The big ones arent that hard to take out anyway.

minor footnote...the game does have co-op, but its only local co-op which kinda sucks cause a friend had bought the game as well in hopes we could play together but so such luck.

So as usual, I'll leave you with a trailer for your enjoyment and I DEMAND! (in the nicest possible way, please) that you give the game a try if hack n slash is your thing.