Next review

....Will be Starcraft 2!. Since I never got around to playing too much of the first one, campaign wise (loved mp matches, but wasn't very good either), my review will be done as one fairly new to the series, which may be rather interesting.

Medal of Honour beta impressions

Medal of Honour Multiplayer Beta Review (PC)

Medal of Honour is back, after a rather long hiatus. Slated for a 14-17th October 2010 release, this newest addition to the series is the first to feature a modern setting, in the Middle East.

What’s most interesting about this newest title however, is the fact that the single player and multiplayer portions are separate and different. Different as in, two game engines, and two developers, one for each section. Yes, you read correctly, there’s a different game engine and developer for single player and multiplayer. EA is working on the single player using a heavily modified Unreal 3 engine, while DICE is working on the multiplayer using the Frostbite engine. Yes, this is the same DICE that created Battlefield: Bad Company 2 using the Frostbite engine.

Will any of this actually matter? Hopefully not. Hopefully both developers bring a great experience to the table due to the more focused objectives.

EA released a closed multiplayer beta on June 21st 2010 on PC and PS3. The 360 version is still delayed, unfortunately. For this review, the PC version will be the platform evaluated, as I don’t currently own a PS3.

First off, some basic information about the beta. It IS a beta. It IS buggy, and glitchy. That’s a given since it’s still in a fairly early phase of testing.

So far, from what I’ve seen, it is a bit of a console port. It could change, but it’s unlikely. The good news, if you can call it that is that the controls feel far more responsive than Bad Company 2 did on PC. So while it feels like a port, it’s not as much as BC2 was.

The default controls aren’t too bad, and if you’re used to BC2, then MoH will be easy to pick up. The controls are a little bugged though, unfortunately. To get sprint and crouch to work, you will need to remap them, same key is fine. This only needs to be done once. Crouch may also bug out during a game, which is annoying, but jumping fixes it. Toggle crouch also does not work, which is a shame and annoyance, as constantly holding down left control hurts the pinky finger. The look sensitivity for controller support is broken, so a slight nudge will send you spinning, and no amount of tinkering in-game can fix it.

The server browser, unfortunately, is also broken, but matchmaking works. While in-game, the score list doesn’t show latency/ping, so if you’re using matchmaking, you could get lumped with a very high ping server, and not know. Having said that though, there doesn’t seem to be any latency issues while playing, though I am not sure if their networking algorithm is very good, or if the server I connect to is local.

The beta includes two game types, combat mission, or team assault, which is just another way of saying team deathmatch. Combat mission however, is more or less MoH’s version of the rush game type from BC2. It works like this; there are two teams, the US and the Taliban. The USA is the attacking team, while the Taliban defends. There are a few (5 in the map available in the beta) objectives which the US must attack, or destroy, with the Taliban defending them.

The map itself is fairly big, but only specific parts are open at any one time, depending on the current objective stage, just like how the map expands when it’s time to move up in BC2. There are a lot of places to take cover behind. Aside from the large amount of rocks, there are wrecks (cars and tanks/APCs alike), small buildings and walls.

Cover is extremely important, as a few shots will drop you dead. Seems like DICE have lowered the amount of damage needed to kill, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing. The only problem I see arising out of this is that the amount of campers, especially ones with snipers will rise, as seen in many a game of Modern Warfare/2. Though this is of little problem to objective oriented game types such as combat mission.

There are also killstreak rewards, though nowhere near as game breaking as the ones found in MW2, or even CoD4 for that matter. At each killstreak kill, you get a choice of a either an offensive killstreak, or a defensive one, for the lack of a better word. For example, at three kills, you get the choice of either a mortar strike, or a UAV recon type reward. At 5 kills, it’s a rocket strike or an ammo refill. You hit one button on your keyboard for one, and another button for another. As of yet, it hasn’t been revealed if you can change what killstreaks you get at what levels or such, and it doesn’t seem like it’ll be possible.

There are three classes regardless of team; Assault, Special-Ops and Recon. Assault’s primary weapons are assault rifles and light machine guns with their special weapon being the “tube” grenade launcher. Special Ops get sub-machine gun type weapons and shotguns as primary. How the M4 is classified as an SMG, I have no idea. Their secondary is an RPG/M72 LAW. Recon, taken straight from BC2, is the sniper class. They use semi-auto or bolt-action sniper rifles. Secondary weapons are explosives such as IEDs and C4. Every single class has a backup pistol, model depending on the team.

MoH also does have a levelling system, which is rather similar to that class ranking system of BC2’s. From what I could tell, you accumulated individual points for each class that you play as. Those points will level that class and that class only. Once you change class, you will earn points for that class. I could not see any other ways to level/rank up, though the possibility most definitely is there. When you rank up, you unlock a variety of things, such as extra magazines, different scopes, different weapons and such.

Obviously, each side have different weapons. So if you unlock say, the second tier gun for recon, then you get that gun for both sides, even though they’re different. The guns sound rather “meaty”, rather than the rather slightly loud “put put” noises from the guns in BC2. The guns are pretty satisfying to use, albeit having close to no recoil, which some may say seems to make the game rather easy, or lame, paired with the low number of hits required for a kill.

For such an early beta, MoH, while at times can be seemingly as bland, and uninteresting as being just another “CoD”, does have points where it shines. The combat mission game type, balanced killstreaks (looking at you CoD), and the weapon sounds, and of course, the Medal of Honour name, make this game “different”. And obviously, the aforementioned bugs do need to be fixed before release. EA just might have the winning formula to snatch away those CoD players, on console at least, once they fix those bugs. Definitely, worth a try if you can get your hands on it, and if you’re into something different, but not wanting to stray too far away from CoD.

Delays

MoH beta review will be delayed. Still need to get it proofed, but it's finished.

First review! The Last Remnant

Yet Another J-RPG from the famous developer and production company that is Square-Enix, released in 2008 (360) and 2009 (PC). Although created by the same company that made Final Fantasy, this game only shares its developer’s name and genre, nothing more.

The plot of the story is, Rush, our protagonist, has his sister Irina kidnapped and you need to rescue her. Why? Because she holds a special “gift”, she can control Remnants. Remnants are artefacts, treasures of another world, but another way to describe them would be as “visual gods”, seeing as that’s how the world of The Last Remnant treats them.

Naturally, since Irina has such a gift, certain “parties” would be interested to use those gifts for their evil gain. Barely a third into the game, another party is introduced, The Conqueror. Not much is known about The Conqueror, who’s dressed in a blood red garb, which I admit, looks pretty neat. That’s as far as I’m spelling out about the story, as I don’t want to spoil any more, the Wiki page is there for that. So basically, it’s sister gets kidnapped, rescue sister, do ??? to The Conqueror. A very basic story if summarised like that, which thankfully gets buffed up a lot thanks to the various side quests in this game.

The side quests are the “butter” to this game, as they provide a lot of information, whether it be about the world, Remnants, or the four races (Mitra; Human, Qsiti; Upright walking frog-like creatures, Yama; Big buff walking fish-like race, Sovani; Feline race with four arms). The side quests are where a lot of the content is at too. If you follow only the main storyline, chances are you’re missing out on at least two thirds of the game! in both content and information. Side quests also add very tangible rewards, whether it be items, cash, components, or more potential characters (leaders) to use in battle. Quests are where you will be doing a lot of your grinding too, which make them even more important.

The gameplay splits into two, a field section and battle section. In the field section, you can see monsters, but the number of actual monsters being represented by each single monster is never known, unless they are a rare, or boss, though the actual value is never above 6 per monster. Then you also have “dig points” which you can harvest treasure or components from, or sometimes even both. There are of course, still treasure chests, who could forget about those?

The battle system is what really separates The Last Remnant from any other J-RPG. Yes, it is still turn based, but it features very large battles, battles you’d expect in a real battlefield environment. Instead of individual units, you have unions, which are made up of individual units. The unions themselves feel more like a whole character, as each union is a separate entity, and you direct each whole union rather than individual characters.

There is also “critical offence” and “critical defence”, with the former doing more damage and bringing forward the next teammate’s turn, and the latter either parrying or counterattacking. You will need to press the correct button at the right time. Think of these like quick time events. Sometimes, these are crucial to winning some of the harder battles.

The union with the fastest mobility (not shown) will act first, then the second will, and so on. Your battle formations for each union, positions where each character is placed in a union may have effects on mobility, specific skills, and stats.

You get a few commands for each union per turn, such as “Take out the leader” or “Heal the others”. These commands, while very vague in face value, allow you to view the commands that each unit takes for that particular action with just a single button. Naturally, you can only select one command per turn. This is where it gets tactical. Should you heal the union that’s close to dying? Should you standby and wait for them to come to you? Should you use an AoE (Area of Effect) attack and wipe out everything in one go? (Okay, that one has pretty much only one answer), should you revive that union that just got wiped out last turn? Because of the size of the battles, things such as speed and mobility are important. If two opposing unions are far from each other, then it takes a whole turn for them to actually engage in combat. You can get flanked after you are deadlocked (when one union is already actively engaging another union), rear assaulted, or massive striked. The same applies vice versa also. Flank attacks, rear assaults, massive strikes, certain abilities and skills, and critical hits raise “Morale”.

Morale is important, because it affects attack, defence, and to a certain degree, the chance that specific skills will become available. This also works vice versa, so if you have low morale, prepared to be hit hard. When a rival union reinforces the enemy’s forces, your morale will take a hit. There is also individual union morale, which plays an important role too, but is influenced more easily, decreasing when taking hits and increasing when dealing damage.

Skills in this game are your main damage dealers, split into many categories. There are; combat arts (directly related to wield styles), mystic art and item arts. What skills you can use in a specific command is determined by AP, current and amount needed to actually use a skill(s), and the skills that have actually been learnt by the character. All skills are learnt with experience, as in, use it over and over again, and it’ll either eventually upgrade or you’ll learn a new skill in that class.

Combat Arts are pretty much just striking with your weapon, whether it be a blade dance, poking strikes, uppercuts etc. They have the potential to be extremely powerful, but cannot strike more than a single unit at a time. Some skills are exempt though. There are a few different wield types, all with their own advantages and disadvantages. Some such as one handed allows for use of a shield, while two handed cannot, but allows for stronger attacks. Requires AP to use.

Mystic Arts encompasses magical spells, whether beneficial, or harmful. They can do direct damage at close or long range, cause status effects, or affect morale. Many mid-level and high-level spells are AoE, which is useful for unions with more than a single unit, or if many enemy unions are in close proximity. These Require AP to use.

Item Arts are consumables, which range from healing/reviving herbs, to traps which cause other adverse effects. This type of skill requires you to be fairly wealthy, as 97% of the time, you won’t be getting the required items for using said arts by ways of monster drops. The big plus about these arts is that they’re generally faster, as in, they’ll come up first or in front of most other arts/attacks in a battle turn, and require no AP to use.

Weapon customisation is, to say the least, interesting. The items needed can be hard to get sometimes, but the extra effects or attack/defence boosts are usually always worth it. At the very least, you can view the stats of a given item before you spend your cash and components to upgrade. Aside from customising your normal weapons (some can’t be), you can also make new weapons and accessories through the customisation shop too. These are usually non upgradeable, and some require extremely hard to get components, but at times, they can be quite worth it for the stat boosts and effects.

You can only directly equip Rush’s weapons and accessories. All other characters will either upgrade their own once item prerequisites are met (they ask for components too), or if you have a better weapon than theirs of the same wield style, then they’ll ask for it. They will only ever ask for accessories from you, and never buy their own (cheap bastards!).

The Last Remnant has a very….distinct leveling system, because it’s not much of a leveling system. Battle Rank, or BR, is directly affected by the number of enemies you defeat, and how strong they are relative to your BR. It rises faster when you fight a lot of harder enemies, and slower when you fight weaker enemies. BR doesn’t affect your character’s stats, at all. You get stat gains and skill gains after every battle, if you fought enough enemies in that battle, or if you fought a hard enough enemy. BR just gives a average rough estimate of the number of enemies you’ve killed.

Some enemies scale with BR, though not by means of stats or HP. Some enemies use certain skills only above a specific BR, while others gain a level to certain skills, which can make some normal enemies harder once you reach a certain BR. This goes for boss fights too, though the threshold for the skill upgrades seems to be a lot higher for them than normal enemies.

The environments look absolutely splendid, and the art style is unique, not really Japanese/anime-ish, rather, more westernised. Seeing the Remnants towering over the towns certainly looked impressive, but I was rather disappointed I couldn’t to see them up closer. The graphics themself are good, but not amazing, since it is running UE3. Which also means long load times, and texture pop in. The PC version has reduced the load times, and has made the game a lot prettier to look at.

The game’s music score is one of the best to date. The catchy everyday sounding tunes, to the heavier guitar in the more intense battles are addictive. My only complaint here is that in battle, a given music track may switch abruptly at the end of a battle turn. It does this to gauge how well you are doing, but honestly, having a song cut out right at the middle is pretty annoying, not to mention the laziness to blend the music in.

The game itself is aimed at an international market, so Square-Enix has hired a bunch of English voice actors (naturally) to do the English dub. On the PC version, there is an option to switch the Japanese dub, but the game is fully lip synched to English. I prefer the Japanese myself, but whatever you choose first will likely be the one you’ll end up enjoying more. This option needs to be added to more games, though it does take a lot of disk space.

It almost goes without saying, that a J-RPG isn’t especially tailored for keyboard and mouse, and TLR is no exception. There is in-game support for a 360 controller, which I recommend you use if you play it on PC.

After you finish the game, you can make a new save for a new game plus, which carries over….certain items which I will not disclose here. You basically replay the game with said items, on normal mode or hard mode. You cannot choose in-game. Hard mode enemies have more HP and hit considerably harder, so it’s not for the faint of heart.

Square-Enix seriously took a huge leap of faith from the traditional Final Fantasy formula, and made something completely original, with a new target audience in mind. It may still be turn based, but it’s hardly like anything they’ve released before. The battle system, while very complex, can be very fun, especially with the bigger battles. The world is interesting and sucks you in, once you’ve done a few side quests to get up and running. The music is superb, with the exception of the abruptly changing track problem. If you can overlook the graphics glitches on the Xbox 360, then this game is definitely worth picking up, especially at the price it’s at now. An install to the hard drive can also increase overall performance substantially. It’s a shame that The Last Remnant is probably the last game with this sort of system that Square-Enix will make, because it had great potential to become a contender against their very own Final Fantasy series.

NB: There is a demo for the game on Steam, which shows off the battle system and main gameplay, but without tutorials.

Humble Beginnings

First post! Planning to post the first review later tonight, after work, for The Last Remnant. Will do some other stuff later on tonight too.