Fable III: Heavy is the Crown

Back when Microsoft was still the new kid in console gaming, trying to muscle their way in with a controller large enough to crack coconuts, they tasked Peter Molyneux and Lionhead studios with making an exclusive game that would bring players running to their new system. While far from a terrible game, the first Fable is undoubtedly most remembered for the endless string of promises from its designer and its failure to live up to them. Perhaps then, it's quite fitting that Fable III, more than anything else, is a game about promising more than you can handle, and trying to put your money where your mouth is once your allies come to collect.

The latest sequel puts you in the role of the son or daughter of your character from the second game (assuming your character in the first game was male, good, and bought every bit of real estate in the game to become king). After a demonstration against the monarchy goes horribly awry, you're forced to recognize that your elder brother has become a tyrannical king, and set out to lead a revolution against him. I won't say more to the matter, as there are some solid plot twists in the game and sadly, there are more than enough spoilers for the game in the reviews already out there.

The original game used the tag line "with every choice, a consequence" and while moral alignment systems are hardly the novelty they were back then, its still something of an experimental mechanic. Where Fable III gets it right, is in the consequence. Your choices have a considerable effect on the world, its people, yourself, reactions, though probably not as much to the story as it should. The choice aspect, on the other hand, still needs some work. Perhaps most interesting, Fable III presents you with one of the most morally grey conundrums gaming has seen in a while, but sadly, its made far less interesting as the game still clings to black and white options, labeling to an almost absurd, "angel on one shoulder, devil on the other" level.

Much of the problem is that the game in many ways, wants to be a playground where you're free to do whatever you like at your leisure, but that freedom keeps the choices in the game from being as difficult as they need to be. Often, the difficult choices are a matter of resources, which are made irrelevant by the ability to take all the time you want to gather more. Sure the game tells me we have only days to accomplish something or take the "evil" shortcut, but the game world exists outside the timeline of the story. In a single "day" of the story, I was able to get my wife pregnant, have a daughter, and see her learn to walk, talk, and demand presents. Still, the game does put solid pressure on the player regardless and being "good" is actually about more than being a smiling bobblehead.

The playground itself suffers from much of the same problems that have dogged the series since the original. There's a ton of things you can do, but there's little motivation to do so. The citizens, while entertaining (the beggers have terrific dialog), are all sort of a single, generic mass, and there's little to make want to get to know them better. It's a shame too, as several points in the game require you get followers, but you do so mostly by helping 1 or 2 people with sidequests. The sidequests themselves are interesting and rewarding enough on their own, so these bits would have been the perfect opportunity to encourage social behavior. What better way to start a revolution than by riling up a drunken mob at the local tavern?

Complaints about the morality system aside, Fable III is still a fun, unique game that does quite a bit well. Combat continues to let you develop your own playstyle with a mix of sword, guns, and magic with enemies that do a pretty good job of reacting to a particular tactic. It's never particularly hard, but the AI is quick to block sword strikes and will retreat out of harms way when charging up an unblockable flourish. Enemies are perhaps a little too weak to magic, particularly when it comes to the Vortex spell, which can incapacitate large crowds with relative ease. Overall though, its a simple, fun system that remains enjoyable throughout the adventure.

If you enjoyed Fable II, its sequel proves to be a similar experience with far more interesting choices and consequences. If you're new to the series though, I would say Fable II is probably the more approachable, universal game in the franchise. Fable III remains solid, engaging hack and slash adventure, whose most glaring fault is giving you a glimpse of a morality game that really challenges your convictions, but lacks the conviction of its own to really put you to the test. Even with its faults, I thoroughly enjoyed my return to the Kingdom Albion and look forward to what else Lionhead has in store.

Yomi: Did You See It Coming?

In case it wasn't clear, once upon a time, I was a bit of a fighting game fanatic. I can't say I ever was so competitive as to learn extensive combo chains or master frame timings, but I managed to do well enough against my friends and cost people my share of quarters at the local arcade. As thrilled as I am with the genre's revival, I can't say I've got the dedication anymore to really master a game to the level it takes to be truly competitive, and frankly, fighting faceless strangers over the internet has never been my thing.

Cue Yomi, a card game by David Sirlin that attempts to distill the essence of a fighter into the basic dance of knowing when to attack, when to defend, and when to grab a turtle and throw him to the ground. At its core, Yomi is a game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Attacks can be Blocked or Dodged, but you can Throw a blocking opponent and an opponent trying to grab you can be stopped with a quick punch to the face. Players each pick a card from their hand and place it face down, revealing simultaneously to determine the winner, with ties going to the attack with the lowest speed stat. More even than the games it mimics, Yomi revels in its namesake; the Japanese word for "reading" an opponent and guessing his intentions.

Luckily, the key to victor is more than just playing the correct counter and trading hits until someone wins. Often, the key to the game is how well you manage your hand, so that when you do manage to land a hit, you can capitalize on the opening to do some major damage. Each character in Yomi has their own, specially designed deck of cards that work as a standard Poker deck (52 suit cards, 2 Jokers). Cards that increase numerically (2, 3, 4 for example) can be chained into one another to do a string of damage while other cards can be used to link broken chains or end the combo after dealing some significant damage. Some characters play defensively, waiting for the perfect card to score a massive hit, while others may simply build a big hand of attacks to try and chain into a string of heavy damage.

Being a card game, there are some oddities as far as fighting games go. Sometimes, you just don't have any good cards for the the situation, though each card does let you choose its facing to be one of two different actions. While this does a great job of mitigating the quality of the draw, its still possible to have a hand of blocks and slow throws against a grappler that can be hard to respond to. Also, it can be a little odd for fans of the genre to be limited to their move selection. You may be forced to change your attack pattern, even if your opponent keeps falling for the same trick over and over. Nobody is going to force you to learn to counter Ken Shoryuken spam here.

Overall though, Yomi definitely succeeds in bringing the essence of the fighting genre to the table without demanding hours of dedicated practice and memorization. It certainly doesn't replace the visual brilliance of the ballet between two expert tournament players, but it will provide you with a solid, tense battle that seems like the kind of game that will only get better the more you play it with the same group of people and learn their playstyle and leanings. Even a game of two out of three will give you the opportunity to play tricks and surprise your opponent with the timing of your choices. While there's no shortage of 2 player, card based combat games out there, Yomi definitely stands out as a worthy New Challenger.

Marvel vs Capcom 3: Gonna Take You For a Ride

Eleven years ago, the world was busy celebrating the lack of a global computer meltdown and trying to find a new anthem now that we'd all partied in 1999. Sega had fallen in love with the number 9 the September before and released it's final home console that was sadly about a generation ahead of its time, and I was a kid in high school who just didn't care. That was until Capcom decided to release one of the most beloved and absurd fighting games ever created. I worked most of that summer saving money for my freshman year of college, but rather than spend it all on beer and pizza, I wound up toiling away so I could buy a Dreamcast, just for a copy of Marvel vs Capcom 2. This landmark game pitted 50+ characters from all sorts of Capcom games and Marvel's most popular comics (aka mostly X-Men) in crazy 3 on 3 tag team match ups. If you ever wanted to know if Omega Red could take down a giant cactus, this was your game. Luckily, Capcom has finally revived the fighting game genre and pulled MvC kicking and screaming into the modern age with all the silly, screen filling energy beams one would expect from the series.

The new roster is a bit trimmed from the last game. Where Capcom had dozens of sprite based fighters to rip sprites from with MvC2, its sequel starts over with a fresh batch of character models (minus a few carryovers from Tatsunoko). For the most part, this fresh start means a far more even level for most of the remaining characters. It seems there's still a few overpowered fighters, but the power gaps are nothing like before. Capcom's roster is perhaps their best yet, nicely pulling old favorites like Ryu and Tron while smartly swapping out characters like Zangief for Hagger to cover more games. If I can find fault with the Capcom roster, its the shameless parading around of characters like Dante, Spencer, Amaterasu, and Viewtiful Joe as a painful reminder that Capcom has dumped the creators of so many of their best new franchises.

For me, the Marvel roster is more of a mixed bag. I'm thrilled to see the game bring in characters like Thor and Deadpool, and risky guys like MODOK. Yet, despite the good, I definitely feel quite a bit is missing from the Marvel side of things. For one, there's far more villains this time around, which pushes out a lot of fun, iconic characters like Gambit and Cyclops. The other, oddly baffling thing, is the number of Marvel's female versions of male characters that both made the roster. X-23 is one of my favorite characters in the game now, but she's also taking up space in the roster that could be used by someone who doesn't feel as much like Wolverine. She-Hulk and He-Hulk play quite differently, but I can't help but feel like Rogue or Ms. Marvel might have helped the roster feel larger than it is.

In any case, the game's the thing and Capcom has done a nice job adapting the cast to Tatsunoko's more streamlined style. The Guilty Gear style controls certainly feel at home with a game with this much air combo madness. There's a great feel to the characters and being able to quickly change playstyle as you swap between Dormammu's passive, trap based style and Felicia's more aggressive mechanics. Overall the game does a good job walking the line between moving forward while still feeling familiar to fans still playing their Dreamcast a decade later.

It must be said, however, that MvC3 really isn't a game for the solo type. Personally, I'm thrilled to see that online play has put an end to the days when you'd bring a fighter home, only to have to spend hours solo before you could invite friends over to brawl, but you certainly won't spend much time against the AI here. The locked characters are available after just a couple hours of play, leaving you with art and mediocre endings if you don't want to find human competition.

Overall, while I'm absolutely thrilled with MvC3, I can't help but feel it's that first game before Capcom really gets it right in a sequel. Like Street Fighter Alpha or even the original Marvel vs Capcom, I just can't help but want more; more fantastic backgrounds (the Ghosts and Goblins stage is one of their best ever), more Mega Man (X please!), and plenty more Marvel heroes. Capcom's created an incredibly satisfying fighter here, but this is Marvel vs Capcom we're talking about; it demands a gluttonous buffet!

True Loves: Heroscape

2006 was a pretty special year for me. No, not because I discovered this next game, but because its the year the real love of my life agreed to marry me. Right about that time, as we were planning to move in to our new apartment, one of my friends decided I HAD to try my hands at a miniatures game and after finding the first master set at Target, I quickly found myself hooked on moving little plastic figures around and throwing big handfuls of dice. Luckily, my love is a very accommodating woman when it comes to my obsessions, so it was only with mild horror that I arrived at our new home with the giant pile of plastic known as Heroscape.

Heroscape is a miniatures combat game that takes place in a strange approximation of Valhalla. I could start to explain the story, but in the end, it's largely just an excuse to pull warriors from nearly any genre and setting imaginable and have them

fight to the death. This is a game where ninja duel cowboys, sentient death machines engage in mortal combat with mighty dragons, and knights in shining army defend elven princesses from cyberneticly enhanced alien gorillas. There were even attempts to branch it out into licensed versions of the game, allowing players to fight with superheroes like Captain America and Spiderman or venture into dark caverns with a Dungeons and Dragons theme.

All of this is made possible with a wonderfully simple, but incredibly flexible combat system. Each unit in the game comes with a card that explains everything that figure or group of figures can do. How far they can move, their range, how strong their attack and defense is, etc, but also a nice large free text area where the designers could create all the special rules they want. This is where the game gives its dragons their fiery breath or zombies the ability to never quite die. Everything is balanced out with a points system that makes it easy to scale the game, from smaller 300 point skirmishes, to massive 1000+ point wars.

The game itself plays quite quickly. At the start of each round, each player is given 3 order markers (plus a bluff) to place on any card of their choosing. This does a wonderful job of reducing the impact of numbers and keeping a degree of planning, as each player must decide their next 3 turns at a time. Once you reveal an order marker, you move the number of figures listed on the card and choose to attack if possible. The game uses a simple system where each player rolls dice for either attack or defense, with wounds being taken for each attacking skull greater than the number of defending shields.

However, the most defining feature of Heroscape is almost certainly the terrain. Each map is built using a series of 3D interlocking hexes, essentially making the process of building the map like playing with a giant pile of Legos. While the base set originally came with mostly aesthetic grass, sand, and stone as well as impeding water and ruins, the game quickly expanded to cover all kinds of different terrain including forests, roads, lava, swamps, jungles, snow, caverns, and even a set of modular walls for building your own castles. The game is essentially endless in this regard, and designing new maps is often as much fun as the game itself. For those simply looking to play however, there is an enormous amount of fan created content on the game's premier fansite, Heroscapers.com.

Sadly, late last year, Heroscape was finally discontinued following Wizards of the Coast's attempts to rebrand the game under the D&D banner. Fortunately, there are still master sets available for those looking to get into the game and the game's tendency to reprint everything means a good deal of expansion figures are also out there. When it's gone though, it's gone for good. Heroscape, like it's spiritual predecessor, HeroQuest, is just one of those rare games that only comes along once in a great long while. Deep, but incredibly accessible, as much as a toy as a game, it's the kind of game I treasure and plan to play for years to come.

True Loves: City of Heroes

Every once in a while I'd like to take a chance to write about a game I've really loved. Not just the games that I thought were really great, but the games that for whatever reason, held my attention for years at a time. Seeing as its Valentine's Day, I thought I'd take this week to go over two of these very special games starting with the original super hero MMO, City of Heroes.

Seven years ago, MMOs were a very different industry than what we see today. They were harsh beasts, heavily reliant on teams and quick to punish failure. Back in the days before WoW became a household name, EverQuest was the game to beat and NCSoft took up the challenge by making a game as different from EverQuest as possible. Where EQ took part in a Tolkienesque fantasy realm with knights and wizards, CoH placed you in a modern city with spandex clad champions. It took on the difficulties of team reliance with scaling missions that made it easy to accomplish something in half an hour by yourself, or challenging for up to 8 players at a time. Most importantly, it gave players the freedom of exploring its world the only way a hero knows how; zipping through the streets, leaping from rooftop to rooftop, or of course, soaring among the clouds.

Most unique of all, City of Heroes has a very different goal from most MMOs. It's not a game about getting stuff. Until very recently, there was no real loot to speak of and little means of showing it off anyway. Instead, the game encourages creativity, giving you access to an unmatched number of character creation options and letting you pick your own set of super powers to create whatever crazy concept you had in mind. Cyborg katana wielding ninjas, mystical weather controlling witches, stomping giant monsters, savage cat people, guys in power armor, and nearly any other creation you can think of are not only possible, but common among the streets of Paragon City. Before Microsoft had unleashed Achievements onto the world of gaming, City of Heroes had you running missions for the simple thrill of collecting little badges to mark all of your adventures and heroic deeds.

What truly matters in any MMO, however, is the community it attracts and the people that inhabit its world. This, more than anything is what kept me enthralled with the game and not for guilds or raids or any other group activity, but through the boundless creativity of the community. NCSoft created a massive sandbox of powers, costumes, and adversaries where magic and science, Batman and Superman could all coexist, and the players drawn to it were just the kind of people looking to create an endless series of unique persona. Even outside the roleplaying community, you'll find every pick up group to be full of off the wall character designs complete with 2-3 paragraph biographies explaining their origins. More often than not they're simply itching for you to compliment them, and eager to fill you in on all the ideas they have for their hero or villain. In classic noir fashion, this city is one where everyone has a story to tell, and long after I had created dozens of characters and run every mission I could find, I'd continue to play just to hear what crazy dream the game would inspire next.

NCSoft's follow up, Champions Online, unfortunately abandoned a lot of the freedom of their original for a more structured, theme park experience that didn't quite capture my attention. I have yet to give DC Universe Online a try, but I am eager to see how it measures up after it's had a few months of bug fixes and content updates. I do hope someday there will be another game as creative and open to the player's imagination as City of Heroes. Until then City of Heroes will always hold a special place in my heart; a city that feels like home, where I can simply wait beside the gargoyles perched upon the rooftops until someone calls for my help, leaping into the sky to fly to their rescue. There are a lot of games that try to make you feel like a superhero, but few can match the experience quite like that.

Monsterpocalypse: The King of Plastic Monsters

In the deep depths of the ocean, a creature is awoken by humanities disregard for their own planet. Making his way to the surface, he wrecks a terrible vengeance on humanity, tearing through cities with an unstoppable wrath. Since the destruction of Tokyo at the claws of Godzilla, cardboard cities leveled by men in rubber suits have become something of a genre in and of themselves, sometimes attempting terror, while also simply being a lot of fun. That same fun is brought to the table with Monsterpocalypse, a miniatures game by Privateer Press that puts you in control of a 200 foot tall beast whose only goal is the destruction of another irradiated, overgrown agent of destruction.

Monsterpocalypse begins with a city. It's best not to name this city or grow too attached, as in a little while, it's going to mostly be rubble and flames. Two giant monsters have chosen this city as their battleground and by the time they're through, few of these towering structures will be spared. There's a great variety of sci-fi movie staples to choose from as well, including dinosaurs, apes, Japanese mecha, Cthulu, flying saucers from Mars, mole people, giant bugs, and of course robotic versions of these abominations. This is a game in which someone decided to take Cthulu, the unholy lord whose mere image drives men to insanity, and turn it into a giant robot.

Along with your monster, you'll also have an army of support troops. These little guys go out, secure the map, harass the opposing monster, and occassionally get picked up and used as makeshift projectiles. Each type of monster has their own set of units that help encourage a unique playstyle. The martians, for instance prefer to capture as many objectives as possible, while the dinosaurs are more prone to simply charging in and doing damage. Luckily, these guys are pretty expendable, as you can respawn destroyed units. The game's only over when either player's monster is down for good.

For a game about giant monster's smashing their way through the city, it's actually surprisingly tactical and deep. The core of the system are the white action dice, which are used both as a means of resolving attacks and as a currency. Need to spawn a unit? Pay a die. Moving it will cost you one more and if you want to attack, any dice you roll are gone as well. All the dice you spend on units are used to activate your monster and vice versa, though you can only take a turn with one or the other. At first, it's tempting to spend all your dice on either side, but over time, you learn the power of budgeting monster dice, allowing you to take two turns in a row with your monster to do some serious damage. Another interesting aspect of this is that you can roll less dice in an attack if you wish, allowing you to save dice by not taking huge swings and weak threats.

Of course, we haven't yet gotten to the best part, and that's that set of red dice above. Red dice are your reward for doing all the fun things a 20 story creature can do. When you level buildings, smash opposing units, or capture specific map objectives, you earn these red power dice, which you can use to launch your monster's power attacks. These create a huge number of options for your monster, whether its rampaging through anything blocking your way, flinging opposing units into one another, or grabbing your opponent and slamming him through a couple of buildings. You'll need these heavy hits too. You'll never win a straight up slugging match with your opponent, but dropping him into a blazing pile of rubble with put him down pretty quick.

Unfortunately, all these options make the game quite complicated and a reliance on icons and a unwieldy rulebook do little to help matters. I highly suggest, if you're interested in the game, that you download a reference, like these unbelievably well produced cards. There are also several cheat sheets available on the game's website. My other word of warning is that this game is currently sold as a blind purchase collectible game, and unfortunately, that makes getting what you want more difficult than it really should be. Fortunately, Privateer Press announced earlier today that this summer, they're dropping the collectible format and relaunching the game without the hassle of blind purchases. This announcement, along with the recently released two player starter boxes, makes it an absolutely fantastic time to give the game a shot. A world of devastation awaits!

Donkey Kong Country Returns: A Triumphant Return for the King of Kong

Always the trendsetter, Mario went retro in 2009 and reminded the world of the joys of well regulated gameplay. In 2010 Retro Studios followed up by reviving the beloved technical marvel of the SNES with Donkey Kong Country Returns.

I mostly wanted to write about this game because it reminds me of what is perhaps the most critically overlooked and unappreciated quality of a good video game: level design. I understand its a tricky thing to write about, particularly compared to controls and graphics, but at the end of the day, good level design is what separates the games worth playing from the games worth playing again and again and again. It's what separates Mega Man 2 from Mega Man 2000 and what makes one random game of crosshair alignment so much better than the millions of other games where you shoot things from the first person.

DKCR is a game that proves just how far good level design can take a game. This is a brutal, relentless game, at least once killing me more than 30 times in a single level and yet, giving up is never an option, even when that stupid little pig shows up to let you wave a white flag. The reason is simple, at no point in this game do you want to skip anything, because it's a game that's constantly throwing new and exciting things at you. One moment you're riding a mine cart on a giant rolling egg, the next you're swinging along vines, or shooting yourself through a series of barrel cannons, or balancing pulleys to move platforms, or riding a missile chasing a giant spiraling mole train. You don't ever choose to skip a level because the game constantly reminds you that no level is to be missed.

Archives of the Gaming Life

Welcome to the ramblings of a lifelong gamer. While I can't say that I've chosen the most novel topic to share with the world, at the goading of my friends and family I'm going to go ahead and give it a shot. Whether its played on the TV or on the table, with dice or a D-pad, I've always been enthralled by these miniature playgrounds.

Games for me have always been about expression and exploration; not just of beautiful art or fascinating worlds, but also of clever mechanics and engaging tricks. The people making games are bursting with creative ideas, doing what they can to share those ideas with the rest of us. Games offer an endless collection of adventures for us, only limited by imagination.

Like any traveler, I'll mostly be sharing my thoughts and discoveries. I'll be posting about the games that are currently devouring my free time, whether they be board games or video games, as well as looking back at some of my favorite games in my collection.

Thanks for reading!