Dungeon Siege III Demo Impression

Dungeon Siege was the first contact with my RPG genre, so it holds a special place in my heart. The very ability to customize characters was a wonderful experience for me. So the first flaw of DS 3 that I notice is the pre-made characters (2 in the demo). Sure it helps in carving the story in a definite manner, but still character customization can be seen in most of the games that claims to have RPG elements and with the first and second game both allowing for a custom character creation, the latter with different races.
With that out of the way, the game surely was designed with the console in mind, the PC version seems to be an after-thought. I say this because of little things like for example a total lack of control customization system. Yes, you can't bind your keys to the configuration you like, but rather will have to make do with the game's configuration. Another annoying little quirk is the assigning of only 3 powers in the interface. Although PC version could very easily manage up to 9-10 hotkeys assigned for this purpose. Clearly this game was developed for the console in mind. (Though, the graphics customization is quite good. I mean for a game that doesn't allow you to set your own key-configs, being allowed to set the MSAF, Texture, Shadows and visual effects is quite surprising!)
The game supposedly supports controllers, but I couldn’t get my controller working, even though I checked the controller support box. And since there’s no input-config screen, I couldn’t even force the game manually in-game to default my input to the connected controller. Maybe the game only supports Xbox 360 controllers, or it’s one of those infamous Obsidian bugs. So, I started the game with the normal Keyboard-Mouse combo. There’s a short introductory sequence that sets up the story and the backdrop of the story. The cut-scene is done through painting based narrations by the grandmaster Odo of the 10th Legionnaires. After the cut-scene you’re made to choose one of the pre-made characters. The demo allowed for 2, a warrior and a mage. Since I’m the mage type, I took up Anjali (yeah seems Square Enix is very interested in Indian names, which makes me proud), an Archon, who can switch between the Human form to fight with a spear, and an elemental fire form, fighting with balls of fire. After this you’re allowed to choose the difficulty from 3, with the Hardcore version, according to the game, not for faint of heart and those prone to throwing controllers (not banging keyboards, even though the controller didn’t work!). Following this there is another cut-scene through a letter based narration and you’re finally thrown in to the game world. The game pops up Tutorial texts giving you directions around the world. The tutorials are very basic covering only the basic usage like moving, attacking and looting and some advanced topics like Empowered attacks. Yet the game doesn’t tell you that for accessing your special power you need to press the numerical keys. Even clicking on the power’s picture doesn’t work. Even after changing the difficulty to Casual, the tutorial wasn’t shown. RPG players might find their way around, but new-comers would be at a complete loss. Also, there are help topics, but again, given the genre of Hack-n-Slash, the players won’t be as patient and it would’ve been preferable to have the info integrated into the game rather than reading pages after pages of it in-game. Maybe it would be included in the Manual, so that players can read it while the game installs.
The game play is simple hack-n-slash like Torchlight or DeathSpank; you move your character using the right mouse button and attack using the left. The movement can also be done using the W & S keys, while A & D rotates the camera. A nice touch, according to my preference. But the console bug is here too, you don't click to loot chest, but rather go near the object and press a button! The combat is based on clicking. Every click makes your character attack, depending on your stance. There are 2 stances for every character: one for handling multiple foes and another for a single foe. Anjali for instance in the human form fights with a spear that attacks in a frontal arc. That means anyone caught in the arc takes damage, and the enemies are intelligent enough to get behind you to attack as well as swarm to overwhelm you. So you’ve got to keep moving about and watch your back while doing it. And the second form for Anjali, her elemental form is for single foes, as she throws fire balls in a single direction. Speaking of enemies, the primary enemies faced by me looked like colonial English soldiers, specially the attire. There are both ranged enemies with bows as well as rifles, and melee enemies. As mentioned above, if you don’t properly guard and block, using the space bar which also drains focus, the enemies will soon overwhelm you. The enemy health stat is displayed by a green circle at their feet, which gradually turns to red as they lose health. The game itself is linear, atleast from what I've seen in the Demo. There aren't any fogged up part, the path's all revealed, and you have a clear marker as to where to go for the objective, so you can just run in that direction to get your objective.
The customization, unlike the previous quirks is quite varied. Sure not as RPG-epic kind, but for a hack-n-slash, it’s quite varied. You have the standard slot for armor, helmet, boots, Yantras (magical amulets for Anjali, another term related to Indian mythologies) and so on. The best thing is the inventory is auto-sorted, so you don’t have to scroll through list of all the equipments to find that specific ring. Every piece of gear is given its own tab, and you’ll find only those things that apply there. The skill system, though short on first look having just 12 skills, is also varied. There are 2 proficiencies for each of them allowing you to customize the skills even further. The talents, likewise, can be upgraded too, to provide better bonus. The health and Stamina are auto-increased at every level, so you don’t need to think of them in term of skills or talents. But different gears do act as Health and Stamina modifiers, so you might pay attention to what you’re equipping. The game makes it easy for you to choose them as the game gives you a summary when you select them in the form whether you’ll gain in any attributes over your current equipped gear or lose them.
It seems like an upgrade over the original Dungeon Siege, but nothing spectacular. The presentation however is very sleek (it’s a Square Enix game after all!). The interface is clean, with the different bars and the portrait at the bottom left, the map at the top. Any items you receive from NPCs are shown in the top left corner. The objective updating is done through slide outs in the bottom center part of the screen, like an achievement pop-up. The game is fully voiced, including the character voices. The dialogue is done through a dialog wheel, kind of like Obsidian’s previous game, Alpha Protocol, though the time limit is removed. The dialog wheel is quite beautiful with intricate art design, a real eye-catcher. That being said, the voice-over of Anjali was, in a word, horrible. It seemed the devs put in a slightly better version of Microsoft Anna, with the voice actress devoid of any emotion and an almost robotic feel to the dialogue. The other voice actors however are quite good, especially the voice-actor voicing Grand Master Odo.
Overall, for players who want to get into the Kingdom Ehb once again, or people looking for something to hack away at will probably love it. The combat is enjoyable, the story intriguing and the presentation is sleek, which can make this game worth playing. Plus the different customization options does warrant some re-play value. It is quite different from the other Dungeon Siege games in the series, it shows that the game's rights have changed hands. Plus the game seems to be lacking in the traditional Obsidian bugs and tech-mis-haps, which seems to be another boon for it.

Age of Empires Online Beta

With the NDA Lifted a public Beta seems to be on the horizon. But till it is announced, I thought it would be nice to share my experience since now I am legally allowed to do it. For those people looking for a Beta key for the closed Beta, you can try your luck by following the instructions here.

Age of Empires holds a special place in my heart. After all, this is the game that brought me to the world of Real-Time-Strategy. I still cherish the day when I took up my mouse and commanded Joan of Arc over a seemingly never-ending campaign of Age of Empires II. After my first tryst with Age of Empires, I just couldn’t have enough, and I had to check out everything that was related to the series, even so far as to going back and checking the first game in the series. And till now, the series, with its gems like Age of Mythology and Age of Empires III, the hasn’t disappointed. So, naturally when Microsoft game studios announced Age of Empires Online, I had to take a look, even though I tend to avoid online games like the plague. And luckily, I was also sent a Beta key. The game is being developed by Robot Entertainment (founded by former Ensemble Studio members of the original AoE repute) and Gas Powered Games (the developers of Supreme Commander). Though the initial core development was done by Robot Entertainment alone which included most of the game, as of 24^th February 2011, they have handed over the further development, the polishing and balancing, to Gas Powered Games, moving on to one of their own IPs, Orcs Must Die! Finally before beginning, I want to say is that this is an review of the Beta version of the game. The problems and bugs mentioned here shouldn’t discourage you from trying gout this game, as they are still in the Beta stage and might get fixed or changed. So the final product might change a lot.

The first thing about designing a sequel is to answer the question, how do you improve over the predecessor. In case of Age of Empires (AoE), it’s a tough question to answer, because the previous game wasn’t broken, in fact it was down-right beautiful, the best looking Strategy game of its time. The answer for the developers seems to be to attract a different audience, while keeping the older core players satisfied. With the games featuring a progressive advance through the ages, throughout the series, it was a little shocking, if I might say, when the game was announced to go back to the ancient civilizations of Greece and Egypt. Even weirder is the fact that the game that revolutionized strategy game’s graphics department, to go for a cartoony look. All these things, at first glance seem to point to a younger audience. But due to my infinite curiosity, I had to look into it, and I’m very happy that I did. In simple words, the game is indeed geared towards a new and younger demographic, but the game doesn’t forget its core players.

The game has changed, with respect to its predecessor AoE III, but most of it is because of the new game play model suited to the online play. The first time you load up the game, you’re given the option to choose a civilization, for now it’s just Greece, with Egypt disabled and a yet unannounced civilization. At the bottom left, you have an option of choosing a realm, alternate for server, though there’s just one for the Beta phase, with hopefully more to be opened. After you choose your civilization, you are dropped onto a map containing 4 basic buildings, including your capital palace, at a corner of a huge map. This is your capital city. Very much like the home city of AoE III, all the things you do, the XP, the coins, the empire points, the raw materials and the loots (Yeah, there’s even a loot system), are used to improve and expand this capital city of yours.

Your game play is basically divided into the time you spend in your capital city and the time you spend on accomplishing different quests, which are basically skirmishes with definite objectives. Unlike the home city of AoE III, where the customization was just cosmetic, here in addition to the decorative customization, you can also add some functional buildings that in turn produces raw materials required to build other buildings, which in turn produces different types of objects depending on the building type. Apart from these there are also other functional buildings, like the Arena, which lets you host party matches, or the Mercenary camp, where you’ll always find a quest giver to sign you up for a PVP match. It’s a good design, which could’ve been done through menus, instead of integrating it into the city itself. Building these buildings is easy. You need to buy blue-prints for each individual building by spending coins, and then having the required raw materials at hand which are required for the building. If you happen to have them in store, you can place the building directly, which results in a nice little construction animation of scaffoldings being thrown up and the construction sounds playing as your building is constructed up. The process is fast, you don’t need to wait, but it’s nice to watch. As you build these buildings, your city grows, not only in then space that it consumes, but also it the way the landscape changes. The buildings that you build brings with it cobbled streets, squares and little details like it. Just like AoE III, your streets aren’t empty. You have tiny villagers strolling around, some relaxing, some just roaming around the bazaar, or praying at the temple, or even fishing! Once you have an industry up, donkey pulled carts will also show up ferrying goods from your workshops to the bazaar and stores. The details are cute and add to the overall charm of your capital city. Among these there are some static persons, who don’t move around much and tend to stay in front of specific buildings. These are your quest givers. Only clicking them, they’ll give you the option of accepting a quest, or if you’ve already done so, abandoning one. The screen where you do these, a sprite of the quest giver with a speech bubble containing some background about the quest, along with the occasional humorous comment, along with a dialog box, detailing the quest, the objective and the rewards.

These quests are skirmishes that you can play in order to earn XP, Coins, Empire Points and Loots and Equipments. This brings us to the second part of the game, the Real-time part which is familiar with most of the strategy players out there. This is the part where you start off with a town center and some villagers and gradually need to build up your economy as well as your military depending on the given objective. This is the part where old players will feel the most “at home”. Most of the game play mechanics are unchanged, apart from small things, which are actually taken from a previous part, like the fact that your villagers are no longer the Atlantean villager types that doesn’t need a drop point for whatever they are carrying; rather they need to build drop sites like AoE II. Another change is that you are not granted access to the full arsenal on the outset, rather you need to play earn XP and unlock the units from the tech tree through leveling up. This restriction also applies to the aging up. In order for you to research the later ages, you need to first unlock them. What this does is that it brings down the learning curve to a gentle slope, with which both new comers as well as veterans will be satisfied. On one hand you aren’t made to feel powerless, but at the same time you aren’t over-powered either, much like the gradual unlock of the campaigns. This gentle learning curve is further reinforced with the tutorial, which gradually eases you in with the different mechanics of your city as well as the game in skirmish mode. The skirmishes are like the older games, which I feel isn’t that bad. After all the old mechanic wasn’t broken and didn’t have too much of a flaw, so retaining that and not changing the game play was a good move. You are given some starting villagers and a town center along with a scout, which this time around, for some weird design concept or perhaps due to the Beta, is irreplaceable and can’t be built from the Stables. From this point you need to build up your fledging settlement and the economy related to it to a strong one to support your offence as well as your defense. Some of the UI elements help you in getting the work done more efficiently. For example, idle villager button no longer cycles through single idle villagers, but rather selects the groups of nearest idle villagers, so you issue quick commands to them. And, as older players would know, during the mid-to-late game sometimes you’ll find villagers standing around because you have finished gathering a resource. On mousing over the resources the game tells you exactly how many gatherers you have and on clicking them cycles through nearest group of gatherers. Also issuing way-pointed commands are much easier, you press shift and order a group of soldiers or villagers, the respective orders and they do it one by one in the order issued. This was a feature that was needed very much and thus allows you to execute some amount of strategic command and tactics, not too advanced, but still it’s welcome.

Like AoE III there is bandit camps here too that holds treasure chests which contain loots in the form of Raw materials, equipments or even blue-prints and recipes. These equipments can be applied on the different units and buildings for a permanent bonus to them, as long as you keep the equipments on them, through the equipments hall in the capital city. The recipes are like the blue-prints, except they allow you produce consumables, which are like the god-powers of Age of Mythology, granting you bonuses like free gold mine or spawning mercenary soldiers or even spawning buildings. Producing these consumables require raw materials given that you have learned the recipe and have space in your inventory. The inventory itself is very basic, just a 16-slot space, that is used to store everything that you get, that’s not currency, on your quest or from your work-shops or as rewards. There are no auto arrange function, but you can drag and drop to organize it the way you like. Each of the slots can hold 100 units of similar objects. So, you see the game play has been stream-lined to welcome new comers but doesn’t forget the older players.

Then there’s the graphics. AoE III introduced very beautiful graphics that included beautifully rendered objects and trees and included are good Physics system. Age of Empires Online instead of going for even more cutting edge graphics, probably due to being an online game, goes with a cartoony approach. With Caricatured characters models and buildings, the game indeed looks cute. Purists may shun it due to the simple graphics, but it fits well with the settings of the game. The game isn’t meant to be very serious, after all. But that doesn’t mean details are missed. Even in this new approach the attention to details is great. Like mentioned above, in your capital city, villager strolls around, fishing, relaxing, tearing grass and the likes. The same amount of details is found in the skirmish too, although a lot less autonomous. Idle villagers from example, sleeps, with “Zzzz” floating over them. Defeated enemies, like the bosses, fall down on their knees or collapses clutching their heart. Normal soldiers, some of them fall down and a grave stone and flowers erupt in their place, while some of them just collapse. Mounted soldiers are thrown off while their horses as both of them die spread-eagled. Trees crash down with the leaves trailing behind, bushes fall-apart, fish jumping at the back of fishing boats, dust billowing around a building under construction, Ships have a rickety feel with planks sticking out from the decks, and being jostled after firing, the flashing of swords of soldiers, donkey-pulled carts that have a carrot dangling in front of the donkey on a stick. Small details like these are abundant, and make the game enjoyable. Sure the buildings don’t go off as spectacularly, but does burst into fire before falling apart. Overall, the effects are quite enjoyable and sometimes it is quite satisfying just looking at your villagers and units scampering around carrying your orders.

But no effect is complete without a believable sound effect backing them up. And this is one field that this game hasn’t disappointed. The sound effects are quite brilliant, with the sounds changing appropriately according to the part where the user is focused. For example when you’re over the market you’ll hear carts and merchants shouting, while when in front of the Temple, you’ll likely hear people praying. The same thing happens in the Skirmish too. Miners have that distinctive sound of their pick-axes striking against ores, gatherers rustling the bushes while gathering, horses neighing, arrows swishing and bows going twang, people shouting when their Town Center are under siege and many more. The sound really does a good job immersing the player in the game. The background score is quite good. Some of them are remixes of the older AoE trademark tunes, while some are new.

The AI in the game is also commendable, with it scaling itself along with the user. Think you can over-run an opponent with just foot soldiers? The AI, even if defeated at the first encounter will send out the proper counters. And it is also intelligent enough of not setting up just lone towers; rather, it’ll put up a range of towers each supporting each other. Thus sieges of enemy towns, especially in the early game without any siege units is quite challenging, requiring multiple stabs at it and a strong economy supporting the effort. The AI doesn’t seem to be cheating too, and earning its resources truthfully. Though one quirk that I noticed is that even when I have a superior army, a group of villagers will attack the soldiers rather than running for the town centers. And when under attack some of the villagers will just run a little distance and stand there, waiting to be killed. But then again it’s the Beta.

But still with so much improvement, there are still many quirks. For example you have to buy a Blueprint for every single building every time you want to build it. That means not only are you paying in material for the building, but are also paying in Gold for every blueprint. Next on the list is the lack of formation commands. While the older AoE was known for being able to command soldiers in formations for some really good and effective tactics, that mechanic is completely missing in this game. There’s just an attack-move command and nothing else related to advanced combat maneuvers. Then there’s the soldiers charging into battle with whatever they have, against a building. A friend once asked me, why is it that people striking with a sword can make a building burst into flames? With AoE III it seemed like the developers had heard such things, but why is it missing here, especially with attention to other details, this aspect sticks out. Another weird aspect is that you can’t save your game while on a quest. So even if the quest drags on for hours you have to play it for hours (even in quests marked as single player only), till you get to your capital city where the game is saved automatically. Then there’s the final controversial point. Though the game will be free to play, many of the juicy units will be only available for premium city owners. I really don’t want to comment on this, but just for the sake of knowing I thought it would be good to mention it here.

Age of Empires is something that I always loved and Age of Empires Online hasn’t let me down. Some people might not like the new looks, but I think this new look gives this game a fresh look and separates it from just a remake. The work by Robot Entertainment, Gas Powered Games and Microsoft game studios is truly commendable. Though, I would’ve preferred a offline game, but with other game companies making you stay online even in a single-player game, the prospect of a game that has online feature built into it, but still having single-player element, is good enough for me. If Microsoft can get the pricing right, they might just have another success story on their hands with Age of Empires Online. On a last note, this is a very enjoyable game that I have enjoyed very much, and often find myself drawn to the game just for that one last quest.

Scores:

Overall: 9.5

Game play: 9.3

Graphics: 9.5

Sound: 9.9

Here are some of my in-game screenshots:

Supreme Commander (Plus Forged Alliance) Review

This game is a classic example of how an excellent product can be marred because there isn't much explanation and an introduction to the mechanics. When I played the demo, I thought, which was reinforced, by the tutorial, that this game is just like all the other RTS games, where you build, group and coordinate an attack to decimate your enemy. So, naturally it didn't make sense when an injured unit would come near an engineer and it wouldn't heal. But then I happened on a video primer on IGN, where I was introduced to the wonderful mechanics of Assistance. This simple, yet wonderful, mechanics makes this game a strategist delight! It's perhaps the only game (out of those that come to my mind anyways) that makes you plan your actions in this game, and that includes the building part too. Once you get hold of this mechanic this is a pretty wonderful game, and suddenly the high scores of Gamespot starts to make sense. I haven't played Total Annihilation, but if it was half as good as this one, then it sure does earn it's place in the RTS Hall of Fame.

The mechanic is simple, you order other units to assist by right-clicking on the one you wish to assist(the plus cursor). Once that's done, depending on the unit that is being assisted, and which is assisting the work changes. For example, if it a combat unit is assisting an engineer, then it will follow it and protect it from enemies, while an engineer assisting a combat unit might increase it's efficiency or rate of fire and heal it when required. Then engineers can assist each others, which results in a tremendous boost to the working rate of the primary engineers. It also keeps units manageable, as controlling the main assisted engineer makes the other assisting engineer follow it around. And there's no limit to the number of unit that can assist. So, as long as you have enough mass and energy to go around, you can make 100s of units assist one engineer, which suddenly makes the building time of 40 mins seem reasonable. And this assistance also extends to buildings, where production buildings will share load, and defensive buildings will gain bonus.

This brings me to the next point of economy in Supreme Commander. It's not the run-of-the mill economy, that is to say, the more unit you have on one resource the quickly you can gather it. You have to build a sustainable economy that remains in the green profit margin and doesn't become more consumption than production, at which point the building will go on, albeit at a slower rate. It's not as if you aren't producing, it's that whatever is being produced, is being used up, and not getting stored. Plus, many of the buildings and even units take up energy, mostly the shielded ones, to operate, whose shield will fail if there isn't a sufficient energy reserve. So, you have to pay attention to the economy too, otherwise your entire army, no matter how powerful can easily fall apart.

Which also reminds me about the army. Unlike other games, where you can spam a single type of unit and hit your opponent until he is overrun, this game puts more stress on the type of unit you bring into play while going against your opponent. Think your hulking giant can make mince meat of anything in it's path, with it's land based Oblivion Cannon? Well, think again, as the hulking giant will be quickly transformed into assimilate-able scrap metal when the opponent brings in it's air-force. So, not only you have to keep a good mix, but also have to keep an eye on the opponent's weakspot, from whence you can stab him and stab him good! It's because of this strongly set mechanic that sets it apart.

All of this strategy talk, can't be done if you don't mention the Tactical view. Out of all the RTS games that I've played till now, there was only Empire Earth that had given me the ability to carry out precision strike and plan my attacks with my Units. CnC has a basic form of it. But this game has that mechanic tightly integrated into the game. Not only can you set a waypoint, but also you can merge 2 waypoints as well as carry out coordinated attacks, wherein your bombers can fly in and bomb high value targets while your tanks move in as soon as your bombers are done, like the real-world battlefield, only you don't have to be a quick shot for this to be precise. Coming back to tactical view, it is a strategist's gold-mine, to put it in simple words! Not only can you do everything from here, but also plan and execute complex tactics, like marking out high value target or identifying the weak points of your enemies as well as your own base. Plus you can see how far your defenses cover and which area needs reinforcing more.

As for the graphics department, the game has quite good graphics and effects, which, if your machine can handle, is pretty nice. Some of the behemoth units crashing down, like the Aeon Assault bot, falling on her knees and then crashing or the shot down planes spinning out of control and then crashing and making a long crash line on the ground, really makes you feel you're in the heat of the battle, not to mention the smaller units that simple gets blown to smithereens when a heavy unit's done with them! Add to that the animations of the units that feel like real mechanical units, with the giant robots stomping onward or the tanks starting off slow and then accelerating in a straight line, or the subs surfacing with one side pushed up first, or even the less maneuverable bombers taking a huge diameter to turn around, makes this game one of the most immersive games on the market. And all these effects are made to come to life, with the excellent sound effects. The creaking of the ships, the floating of the saucers, the sounds of the lasers and missiles going off, or even the muffled artillery shelling that's going on at a distances and the subsequent screen-shaking makes you feel like a commander that's duking it all out on the battlefield, and keeps you glued on for that one more attack, that can easily result into 2+ hours battle which very nicely complements the humongous maps this game has.

As for the campaigns, they are one of the most well designed campaigns. They start off small but gradually eases you onto the humongous maps so that you don't feel lost. The scripted events are great, and the difficulty challenging enough to keep your grey matters humming all through out the campaign till you see the operation complete dialog box, because the defensive line that you thought was impenetrable, will eventually fall. Special commendations for the last missions of the campaign which really makes you feel like the last hope of your respective race, of the main game, and all of the campaigns of the Expansion, which really makes you feel you like backed into a corner.

Apart from all these good sides, there are a few quirks. For one, the game is a Major resource hog, specially the CPU. Unless you have a top of the line CPU, this game will bring it down. Good thing the game does natively support multi-core CPU. Apart from that there's the bug part. The game's buggy as hell. The game starts off fine, with everything smooth and clean, but 2 hours into the game, and the videos start to lag. Completely shut it down and start it off again and it's back to normal! Also, this doesn't qualify as a bug but still a flaw nonetheless, every building you build in this game adds to the unit count! That means even if you put up immovable walls, it will be counted as your unit! What the hell is that supposed to mean! And to add to it, there isn't an unit counter! Although the later part is solved in the expansion, which got a complete facelift.

But still barring all the problems, I would still recommend it to players who like their strategy part in RTS, and not just mindless unit spamming. It's a wonderful game, with a wonderful plot and backdrop as well as wonderful and awesome units (some of the Experimentals are just too awesome!). Kudos to Chris Taylor (whose Dungeon Siege brought me into RPGs ) for such a wonderful and true RTS game. Just that the tutorials needs a lot of work, and leaves a lot to be desired.

Overall: 9.7
Gameplay: 9.8
Graphics: 9.5
Sound: 9.9

Here's some screenshots from my playtime:

Welcome to the N.H.K Review

Being a fan of Anime, I thought I should start sharing my impressions of the various Anime that I watch. So, beginning with this post, I have decided to add Anime Reviews too, to my Blog. As for the first Anime, I would like to share one of my all-time favourite, Welcome to the N.H.K.

Welcome to the NHK is a great anime that tells the story of Tatsuhiro Sato, a social recluse. The story not only tells of his present predicament, but also why he became a recluse in the first place, as well as why he couldn’t accept the society around him. But the story just doesn’t stop there. It goes on into how a girl, about whom he didn’t know anything comes to him and offers to help him for nothing in return, and how he meets an old junior schoolmate, who also impacts on his life. Along with these, the story shows the different traps of society that’s just lying outside to snare people, and how Tatsuhiro manages to fall into almost each and every one of them and then be saved by his 2 friends.
Welcome to the NHK is not an anime which you can classify as a single genre. There are multiple types of anime, all rolled into one. The first and foremost would be the comedy. This anime has soon very good laughing moments that will force your funny bone. Sure the amount isn’t as much as other dedicated comedy, but there are enough to keep the sailing smooth and keep you interested in the story.

Then there’s the second type that showcases the various social traps and the vices of society that we can see people falling into regularly like pyramid schemes, online gaming addictions and suicide. Not only does Sato manage to get involved into all of these, but he also manages to experience them from the perspective of the addicts, that is why they do what they do. It really makes us think, having a perspective that is common with the society and the perspective that is of the people that are involved.

The third type of story that goes on in this anime is obviously the story of Sato. The anime develops his character very nicely, with his motivations of becoming a recluse, why he suddenly believes that the mysterious girl can help him, or why he can’t really bring himself up to lie to his mother easily. The story also deals with his view of the world, how it was influenced and how he manages to relate his senpai’s notion that the world really is a conspiracy to be true and everybody in this world is part of that conspiracy plotting behind his back, or how the society feeds off recluses like him and how they have measures ready to keep him a recluse. At the end his conclusion that he really is alone in this world seems to be perfectly right.

Lastly, there’s the story of the human nature. Like it was said in the anime, the human nature makes us think we are better than others. So, as a result, when we can’t accept something we blame it on others to make ourselves superior. In this case, Sato influenced by his Senpai, the conspiracy to keep Sato a Hikikomori. So, in a way Sato being a Hikikomori is actually following his human instincts of being superior. Since he was always afraid of what the people are thinking about him, he decides to cut him off from the society and think himself to be alone in the world, and thus automatically make himself superior.

Apart from the story, the animation is great. The characters animations are quite believable. The animation where Sato comes at Misaki with his fist raised and anger on his face, and how Misaki, like the little girl embraces herself and pleas, was great. The anger showed how angry Sato was, and Misaki reflex does show how really afraid she was at that point, even though spending all those time with Sato and thinking she had reached out to him.
In the sound department, the starting theme is good, while the first ending theme wasn’t to my liking, but that might be because I’m not into rock music. That being said, the second ending theme is very nice. The voice acting is also quite good, with Sato’s character having that reserved tone that really brings out his character. The other characters are also voiced just as good. But the special mention in this segment is definitely the background score that plays during the anime. This anime has one of the best and the most spot-on background score. The guitar riffs really sets up the mood for the different emotional scenes throughout the anime.

All in all, this is a great watch, for anyone that wants something serious. The characters develops properly, the story moves on at a great pace, and at the end of it, you have a great story that stays on your mind for quite a long time. Overall it is a fine example of an anime. As was said by the person that recommended me this, this anime really did manage to leave a mark on me!

The Sims 3 Review

There are very few games that I’ve played that reeled me in. And there are even fewer games that made me miss both my dinner and my favourite TV show. Yes, The Sims 3 made me miss both of those things on my first day of playing it. And even after missing them, I wasn’t mad, but still continued to play it! I heard, or rather read, about The Sims in a magazine, the idea of which enthralled me. And when I got the game, I fell in love with the series. So naturally when EA announced The Sims 3, I was pretty much excited. And after having played this game for about 3 days, I feel my investment was not a total waste. The game was touted as an evolution of the Sims franchise, allowing for even more freedom and a lived in and a believable society. New features like following your Sims everywhere, customizing everything and assignments of traits to create truly unique individuals were also touted.

For the uninitiated, The Sims series is, like its fore-father, the SimCity Series, a Strategy or God playing hybrid but with a lot more focus. It’s a people simulator. But don’t let the small scale fool you, as it happens managing people can be quite bit challenging than managing a city. Like all of us, these tiny computer people, or Sims, have varying needs, habits and traits. They need to regularly clean themselves, have proper food and avoid over-eating, go to the bathroom as and when needed, hunt for jobs and maintain a social standing. And like the real world, if the Sim has a family depending on it looks after them, like paying proper attention to the wife/husband and children and fulfills their wishes. Not only that, new parents need to even wake up in the middle of the night to change Junior’s diapers! Add to that a finite lifetime, in which they can even meet untimely death, and a lot more things, and you have a quite complex and engrossing, and not to mention unique game genre. You can choose to be as generous and make a model sim, or simply play the devil and reduce your sim to a hapless loser! But beware, if you can’t manage the variable properly, both you and your sim would be ripping your hair off!
That said, the Sims 2 was the first 3D game in the series and was a huge success, spawning many expansion packs and a loyal fan-following. So, The Sims 3 had to be something better than that. Let’s see if it succeeds.

First Impressions:

The first thing you notice about The Sims 3 (TS3) is the almost, if not complete, lack of loading screens. Save for the game loading screen and the save game loading screens, there is absolutely no loading screen interruptions. Maybe the lack of loading screen has become a style, as most games tout such a feature anyway. And I for one am grateful that TS3 team decided to go in with the flow in this field. The lack of loading screen really keeps the game flowing smoothly. While the predecessor had a loading screen for almost every task that involved leaving your lot’s compound, this game is seamless. Whether you want to just go Downtown to grab some grub or go for a little grocery shopping, there isn’t a single loading screen in between. You Sim just hails in a cab and you can follow the cab as it travels through the neighborhood! And if you can afford it, your Sims can drive themselves given that they have transportation medium, which ranges from Cars to even Bi-Cycles and a Sims 3 Exclusive Scooter too!

The next thing that you notice is how much cleaner the interface has become. It’s as if the game guides you in the right direction and instills a sense that you can’t go wrong. The launcher, which also doubles as a content manager auto-logs-in if you are connected. There is a big blue play symbol that starts the main game. For new games you choose a neighborhood and click the check-mark. After which you can choose to create a sim or move in into a pre-made lot. Selecting the family tells you the necessary information as well the level of difficulty. And if you already have a game saved, then the start-up interface changes to a list of the saved lots. From here you select the game you want to move in and on clicking the check mark, loads the selected game. No need for getting into the neighborhood every time and clicking on the house to load your game. And all the while, in TS3, you have these helpful pop-ups that prompts you and displays the relative Lessons, which in itself is quite vast and is kind of an in-game manual, detailing almost every aspect of the game.

Create A Sim

This change seems to have crept into every nook and corner of the game. Right after you drop into Create a Sim, you’ll notice that the interface has been completely redesigned. The slider controls for the advanced tweaking like fine-tuning the sims has been condensed into an advanced setting, with the default view being a multitude of pre-made body shapes a components that you can choose. You can always opt-for a random part too, if you’re not feeling like customizing. And if you peek into the advance settings, you can see that, that too has been redesigned. The sliders are grouped into different region of the face, which can be accessed by clicking the specific dots on the face, shown under the advanced settings.

Similarly, the clothing sections have been redesigned to include Tops, Bottoms and Sets for each category, with additional accessories too. After you’ve set the cloths, but think that the shoe doesn’t exactly match, you can fire up the Create-A-Style mode, another touted feature of the game. Through this, you can absolutely mix and match any style to create that perfect blend. Want your Sims to wear a Brick patterned shirt? Why not! (No matter how weird it looks!) Just get a shirt and enter Create-A-Style and select the Brick pattern. And it doesn’t stop there; you can customize each of the style, drag it onto different object (perhaps to create that perfect camouflage) and even save them and share them on the sim community! The style itself can have multiple patterns associated and each can be differently colored, by specifying the tone and the color of it. Also for those extreme enthusiasts, there’s even the option for viewing and entering in RGB numbers too. The associated Lesson does a pretty good job in teaching the basics about it. And the best part, you can use this tool absolutely anywhere in the game, be it your furniture or even the walls. Everything can be customized.

Being done with the main sim, it’s now time for setting the characteristics of Sims. And this is where one of TS3’s main attractions comes into play: Traits. Each Sims can have up to 5 traits assigned to them from a huge pool of 63 traits. So, you can virtually make the most well natured, world-leading, Utopia-founding sim or if you’re feeling that devilish, then you can even make an Evil mad scientist! These traits cover almost all of the traits that you might think of, from Kleptomaniacs to even plain unlucky sims. These traits are not for just the cosmetics purposes, each of those traits have effect on how the sim interacts or how the game reacts. Like for example, ambitious Sims will be able to get promotions faster, being ambitious, while loner sims can stay at home and doesn’t need to socialize as often as others, and thus even work from home. After you’ve chosen your desired traits, you get a selection of career tracks’ Lifetime wish (more on this later). Next you choose your favorite music and food and color and you’re done with your sim.

Live & Buy Mode:

After you’re done creating your sims, you now need to choose a house, or a lot, if you want to build a custom one. Buying a house will give you 2 options, furnished, costing a bit more and unfurnished, costing less, but coming with only the basics, in the form of the bathroom plumbing and the kitchen. But according to the manual, an unfurnished house might contain special surprises.

Going into Buy mode, will reveal a significant change, which has become one of my favourite. Although the older buy by category is present, going into Room-wise sorting will result into the puck being changed into a mini-display of a room, with a pictorial representation of the entire related thing that room might have arranged in an aesthetic way. This way it not only makes it easier to figure the required object, but also gives an idea of what should be where and helps with the aesthetics. After figuring out the basic amenities, it is off to Live Mode.

At first glance, the Live Mode interface doesn’t seem to have changed much. There is still the similar control puck, with the household sims displayed in a skewer along the left side. But inspect closely and you’ll see how much the game has changed. The first and foremost, is the complete absence of Aspirations. Aspirations in this game have been replaced by Wishes. And unlike fears or the negative aspirations, there are no negative wishes. You can click the wishes to promise them to your sims, that is move them into one of the four slots, and thus freeze it till you accomplish it, unlike the locking of Aspirations which allowed for just one constant Aspirations. It doesn’t really affect the mood meter, but does spawn a positive moodlet, that has an effect on the mood meter. Completing promises or wishes, grants you Lifetime Happiness points, which can be used to purchase various rewards like a never having to pee, or discovering sims’ traits or even a teleporter, from the tab of the same name. Unlike the aspirations, these doesn't always ramp up in difficulty, but it's simple wishes like baking some cookies or even going fishing! So, fulfilling these wishes doesn't take up much away from enjoying the game, and thus makes the game a little more easier.

Gameplay:

As mentioned above, there is now a new game mechanic, which has been dubbed as moodlets. Every action as well as surroundings spawns a positive, neutral or negative moodlet that affects the mood meter. In plain RPG speak, these are modifiers of the mood meter. So, your mood meter doesn't bottoms out if one or more of your need variables fall low. Instead, that spawns a neutral moodlet that has a time limit. If you can solve it within that time, your mood meter goes back to normal. This new mechanic not only makes the game play a tad more easier, but also rewards you for doing small things like brushing your teeth and even going out on your holidays, thus in a way this mechanic simultaneously allows and motivates you to explore the world of Sims more.

The next thing you’ll notice is the weeding out of unnecessary details. For example, when you start off with your sim, you don’t have access to all the skills. They are revealed as and when required. That is if you are planning on a scientific career, and never play any musical instrument, then you won’t have the related skill showing up. Also, the ones that do show up have a skill journal associated with it. This journal, details the various nitty-gritty that you’ve gone through to acquire that level. Plus, it also includes the pointers for the mastery levels of its own Opportunity.

This brings me to a major upgrade of the game. Everything in TS3 is so detailed, and I’m not talking about the graphics. For example, in The Sims 2, when you searched for a job, a pop-up would come, and if you didn’t like it, you’d need to search again, till you get the one you want. But in TS3, you just get a single dialog box, with conveniently placed arrow keys, that lets you choose whichever job you want, from that single dialog box. And it spreads to all over the game. Then there’s the social interaction. Every time you enter into an interaction, an icon shows up with a bar that starts off in the middle and increases to the right if the other sim approves your action or left if your actions are disapproving. This, quite literally, takes out the guess work out of the game. Switching to the career tab, it also details what is needed the most for your job performance and your next promotion. It’s no longer only white boxes around the skill levels and the number of friends and the mood in which you reach your job. It’s about your performance. Max it out and you get a promotion, a slack and your meter drops and when it bottoms out, you are demoted or even fired. Wherever you look there’s this helpful upgrade in-built. From time until which you’ll sleep to even the time until which you’re going to complete a task, all are represented by a progress bar in the icon.

Plus there are these little additions to the standard Sims life. You can now tinker around the household to upgrade the various machinery to become fire-proof or even self-cleaning. And if you have a computer, you can hack, which brings in cash, and even over clock it! Every sim now carries a cell phone, so no need for an extra phone. This phone comes equipped for checking real-estate, calling services and the likes. And oh, yeah you can take pictures with it and even set it’s ring tone!

Speaking of jobs, jobs are no longer the standard fare. While some jobs have a different path, like the law enforcement, all the jobs can be done in various ways. If you sim left with low energy, you can ask your sim to slack off. Want to build up relationship with co-workers, ask your sim to spend some time with their co-workers. You can even impress the boss by helping the boss or even plain work hard. Each of the way has different effect on your sim. So, you have to choose the one accordingly. This does make the job part of the game a lot less cosmetic and a little more interactive.

This then brings me to the already mentioned Opportunities. This one, very much like the moodlets, is another new mechanic. These will pop-up from time to time given by your co-workers, known contacts or even by checking the happenings through reading newspapers and using the internet. To simple put in simple words, these can be termed as side-quests. The reward varies as well the missions. Some will have certain variables to it, while others are plain simple. You have 3 kinds of Opportunities, which can be accessed through your Opportunities tab. The puck automatically tracks your Opportunities and informs you what you need to do, without opening the tab. A simple right-click also allows you to step-down from the Opportunity and thus makes room for another. I could go on and on about the list of improvements that this game has made. But that would be too long.

Graphics:

As for the graphics, TS3 has a slightly higher requirement than its predecessor. But considering the default hardware available in the market, any system can run this game pretty smooth. Also, the game does make use of the new extra resources more. The graphics are crisper, the environments are lively and looks lived in and little effects like trees swaying in the breeze and various other effects abound. Even the objects have higher quality textures. You can now make out small details on the food as well as other items in the game world. In addition to this, you can see pretty clearly the TV shows and the games being played on the computer. Not only that, the game has many nifty improvements too. Your sims shows some really cute animations and sometime even pleasantly surprises you. For example, you sims now sings songs while bathing, or hums a tune while gardening. And if you buy them a bath-tub, they’ll sometime take a dip in the water, while bathing, blowing bubbles and then coming up and start giggling. These little things form the basis of the Sims charms. Everything from the small animations of your sims jumping up and down in joy, to shaking their little fists at you, to the humorous quotes of loading screen like “Unloading Loading Screens” and even the witty descriptions of the objects, will bring a smile on your face. And before you know it, you’ll fall in love with the game.

But with all these things going on, the game does a pretty good job of keeping a steady frame-rate. The transition from the house-level to the map level, for example, is seamless and without a frame-rate hitch. Even following your sim around in through the city is smooth. And if for some reason, you still aren’t able to get decent frame-rates, you can turn off some of the details from the highly detailed options screen. From here you can even turn off things like Story progression, sim aging, placement grid etc. The story progression means that the other sim will also age like normal, get married, have children and eventually die off. The sim aging, which could be controlled in the earlier game only through a certain aspiration reward, is now directly controlled from the options. You can adjust the time it takes the sim to age, essentially determining your game’s length and difficulty, or you can simply turn off aging for a pseudo-sand-box feel. The grid placement allows the objects to snap to a grid, while on, and while off, gives you complete free-will to where you place them. In addition to this, you can now place any object diagonally by default while rotating too.

Sound:

The sound of TS3, however, requires a special mention. Like always, yours Sims speaks in a gibberish known as Simlish and the voice actor does a pretty good job of delivering it with charm. Even your Sim now has a voice option, in which you can choose how your sim will sound and along with the pitch of the voice. The environment also sounds great, with there being different sounds present for all the environments, from the crashing waves at the beach to the birds chirping in the park, every sound detail are covered. Not only that, the music playing on the radio are pretty good. You might even recognize some of the songs as being the simlish version of real-world songs. Along with that you have the option to listening to your songs too. The general background tracks, like its predecessors, are very catchy. While you might recognize some of the tracks from the older games, you will definitely notice the new ones. The recycling of these tracks doesn’t make this game loose its charm in any way, rather adds to it. And before you know it, you’ll be humming the tunes yourself!

Conclusion:

With all these improvements, one might ask the question: What about the expansions from the previous games? Are they included? The answer to that, is a no, and a small yes. While the most obvious expansions like Pets or Seasons are missing, there are some lingering shadows of the previous expansions. For example, you can try out your entrepreneur skills, but are only limited to real-estate. You can start off with a partnership and go onto buy the entire business. You can then upgrade it, collect rent every Monday morning and even fire employees. Similarly, other inclusions of mini-games are shadows of previous expansion packs. Like the cooking skill. It’s no-longer a wide variety of cooking options. You have to learn the recipes as well as buy some, to be able to make them. Also, you just cannot order your shopping over the phone anymore. You need to go down to grocery store and shop for the ingredients for the recipes. As you improve in cooking skill, as well as prepare a food more often, you get better at that. The result of which is that although you might have to stomach burnt food at first, you get better at it, so much so that the diner’s food start to taste bad. And if you can use good quality ingredients, the quality of the food automatically increase, just like in real life. And for the Farmville fans out there, here’s a good news, Gardening features more prominently, with the ability to grow produce of varying quality and even selling them off. It’s no longer a cosmetic feature of weeding plants, full-blown gardening from tending to fertilizing to even harvesting of plants. But with these additions, there are still some glaring holes that can be felt to have been left deliberately for future expansions.
In conclusion, we come back to the main question: Does the game succeed. To that, I would like to say this: This game is what the original game should’ve been. It’s not just a sequel; it’s essentially a reboot of the franchise. With a more accessible game play, a believable society, powerful editing and creation tools, the ability to create individually unique sims, and the additions of mini-games like gardening, cooking and real-estate, the possibilities seems to be endless. Add to that the games’ habit of pleasantly surprising you now and then, and you have one perfect Sims game. So, yeah, I would recommend any Sims fans out there to go grab a copy and play this game, as well as those unsure new-comers to go ahead. But, if you are looking for immediate gratification with this game, then The Sims are not for you.

Scores:

Game play – 9.5
Graphics – 9.5
Performance – 9.9
Overall – 9.7

Plus, for those who register the game, they not only get community access and tech support for free, but also $10 worth of SimPoints (the online Sims Store currency) for free, in addition to a whole new town. Not only that, but you can download user-created content as well as free stuff from the store, like the Renault Concept car. All this can be done from the launcher, and after updating the game, you get an in-game browser, which entitles you special free contents too, from the official Sims team.

Here are some screenies: