Sweating the little things, i.e. minor improvements in Ultimate MvC3

Alright so there isn't too much to talk about this week. The creatively titled 'Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3' (which uses five different fonts in its title) isn't for better or worse really all that different than its predecessor. So other than the HUD (discussed last week) what's changed? Well we've got twelve new characters, eight “new” stages (whoop-de-doo), an allegedly improved online mode and a whole host of tweaks to the existing characters. Anything else? Yes! Of all the various systemic and menu options that I picked the “vanilla”  'Marvel vs. Capcom 3' apart for Capcom has changed...one of them. Wait, what? Yup, of all of the various design issues that plagued the non-gameplay elements of “vanilla” only one of them has been changed from “suck” to “functional”.

While I'm not complaining about the change they made it's a little frustrating to see how little else got fixed. Oh, the change by the way is how failed matchmaking attempts are handled. That's it. While this was certainly a source of frustration for me and I'm sure many others it wasn't what I would consider to be the highest priority issue in the game. That would be the button configuration (source of much time wasted) which remains inexplicably unchanged. So now with the search we start here:

Something about this looks very familiar.

We search for a bit and if something goes horribly, horribly wrong we get this:

Abort! Abort! Abort!

And then we end up back here:

Yes, I definitely feel like I've seen you somewhere before.

That's it. A simple and obvious change to something that shouldn't have been a problem in the first place. Good job. Ugh, really? That's it? I still have to use the second worst button configuration utility in fighting games, still have to sit through pointless post-matchmaking song and dance, still have to deal with the game saving itself three times after every ranked match? Gee, thanks Capcom. See you all next week.

Insert creative Vampire related article title

And now for something completely different. Wait, I'm sorry, I'm being informed that I already used that opener and that I'm contractually obligated to wait at least one calender year before I start recycling material. Well, OK, anyhow today's article is an examination of a PC gaming fossil in 'Vampire:The Masquerade Bloodlines', an action RPG with vampires. There are two reasons why I even played this game. The first was that I started seeing the title crop up on various gaming forums in topics along the lines of “Name your favorite under appreciated game” and then over the Halloween weekend Valve's digital distribution service Steam had the game on sale for five dollars. Figuring this was a pretty low risk investment I picked it up. Now, before I go any further I will say that the game was most certainly worth the five dollars that I paid for it and that it would also be worth it at the non-sale price of twenty dollars. There are just a few minor issues with the game but that's why we're here.

The first thing you'll likely notice once you install the game is that it likely doesn't work. There are, according to the support forums, any number of reasons why this could be but I'm going to go with computer voodoo as the reason why my copy didn't work. So you're going to need to download the patch for the game. But which one? Well as best as I can tell downloading both the developers patch and the fan made one should get things working for most people. Amusingly you might notice that the version history is a hell of a lot longer for the fan made patch than the developers one. The reason for this being as best as I've been able to tell is that the developers went out of business shortly after the game was “finished” and essentially shipped a product that was somewhere between non and barely functional whereas the fan support for this game (especially given its age) has been nothing short of heroic.

On to the gameplay side of things it would seem that for the sake of realism that 'Bloodlines' was trying to be a trendsetter in 2004 by not including a true map function in the game. In city and (most) sewer areas there are maps of the region posted that the player can consult to get an overhead view of the region. Everywhere else, eh not so much. Now this has actually become the somewhat in thing to do as there are a few recently released games that have either a pared down or non-existent map function. This is fine as long as you're dealing with small-ish and/or very distinctive environments and/or an incredibly linear game. You might be able to deduce from this being mentioned that 'Bloodlines' doesn't really meet any of those criteria and that it's somewhat easy to get lost (especially is non-mapped sewer areas). The funny thing is that the lack of a map wouldn't be an issue (outside of the sewer areas) if the game didn't automatically close doors after you. That is to say you open a door, go into the room and a few second later the door closes on its own with this same process repeating upon exiting the room. The reason that this is an issue is that without a map function it's hard to know where you've already been. Leaving the doors open to rooms you've already checked would've been an easy way to fix that.

This last issue is a minor one and may in fact be a function of my computer hardware but I found myself too often reloading from a previous save because I had wasted money on an item that I didn't want. What would happen was that I would highlight an item to examine it and in the process one too many clicks finds its way into the system and now I've bought the item. Given that many sales are final (you can sell the item back to the store at a loss) and that money isn't that easy to come by in the game this was certainly a source of irritation for me and as the game progressed (shinier/more expensive stuff to buy) I found myself having to quicksave before every merchant interaction.

So that's it. Those where the only real issues I had with 'Bloodlines'. Seriously, I was surprised at how solid a game it was and it's certainly a shame that the developers are out of the game. Pick it up for five dollars, twenty dollars or whatever. See you all next week.

I don't always play fighting games but when I do I prefer that they not remind me of Dos Equis.

And yes I realize I'm not the first person to make a joke along those lines. Anywho people, a new version of 'Marvel vs. Capcom 3' is out creatively titled 'Ultimate Marvel Vs. Capcom 3' and before anyone gets antsy it does in fact continue it predecessors proud tradition of making some seriously questionable design decisions. In this case the one that's going to jump out to most people (especially those who played the “vanilla” version) is the heads-up display (HUD). At this point I have to imagine that between the HUD, some of the system changes and many of the character “balance” changes that the number one action item for the 'UMvC3' team was: change for changes sake. While I won't be getting to the system or “balance” changes in this article I am going to be briefly going over the new HUD.

Pictured: A reminder of what the original HUD locked like

On the left you'll see the second most interesting man in the world.

The first couple of issues with the new HUD seem more like systemic issues with Capcom. Mainly being that no one asked for this as the HUD in the first game was perfectly serviceable and significantly more legible than the new one. Additionally when Capcom was debuting various builds of the game over the summer the community feedback on the new HUD was almost universally negative and it's nice to see that those comments went almost completely ignored. I'm not saying that a company should bend over backwards to accommodate every minor complaint that a fan base has but in this case some level of change was warranted. As far as I'm aware there was maybe one complaint to be had about the original HUD and that was that the indicator for whether or not you had a specific resource still available to you was kind of hard to see (the red dots next to the character portraits). Other than that it was fine. Ergo if you'd stuck with the original but fixed that one issue you'd have a HUD that is miles better than the one we've got now.

Furthermore I'm very curious who thinks a character order that goes 3-1-2 (new) is somehow more intuitive than an order that goes 1-2-3 (old). While this is a change where I agree with the apologists (i.e. people who're for some reason defending terrible design) that people will eventually get used to I have argued and will continue to argue that it's something that people shouldn't have to get used to. More change for changes sake. I get it that the designer wanted to make it more apparent which character was on point at any given moment but there really has to be a better way to do so than this.

Before we get to the last issue here's a test. More specifically it's a crappy web-based test for colorblindness. See 'UMvC3' like 'Bioshock 2' makes a mistake in its design that makes it difficult to impossible for those with certain forms of colorblindness to see the display properly. In 'Bioshock 2' it was a minigame that was literally impossible for those with red-green or blue-yellow colorblindness to solve. In 'Marvel' while I haven't seen the specifics of the complaints I have seen several colorblind players vocalizing their concerns about being unable to read several of the meters/gauges effectively. This is certainly an area where I don't recall seeing similar complaints about the old HUD.

Overall looking at the (ghastly) changes to the HUD it really does seem to reinforce the suspicion of change for changes sake. Even more-so than when the change results in something that is considerably worse than what it's replacing is the resources devoted to these unnecessary changes. As of the writing of this article (a couple of days before the games official launch) people have already found more than a few glitches ranging from silly to “Oh hell” that's a problem. Maybe a few less random changes and a little more QA/QC next time Capcom. Not a sermon, just a thought. See you all next week.

Breaking the bank i.e. how to cheat single player virtual economies

“Cash Rules Everything Around Me” a phrase coined by noted philosophers the Wu-Tang Clan is one of the most applicable phrases to survival in video games. I'm not talking about getting the money to buy games. I'm talking about how, in most games, even when it's your job to save the world that the shopkeepers are still charging you the recommended retail price for potions. You'd think that given the gravity of your mission that they'd be happy to comp you some supplies and you'd be wrong. At least one game whose title I forget made light of the situation with a shopkeeper who, when questioned on this, said that he had faith that you'd succeed and that he'd need the money after the world was saved. So then what's an adventurer to do? Well if you're like me the answer to that question is that you break the game. Which is to say you find a way to generate more money than you could possibly ever need. To this end join me in a trip down memory lane for a few examples of how to break game economies.

The oldest game where I actually remember the economy breaking tactic is 'Final Fantasy VII' for the Playstation. In this game you spent a lot of time gathering up various spells in the form of materia. In order to use the materia you had to equip them to your armor and weapons and like the actual character these materia leveled up after battles (very slowly). When they maxed their level the materia created a new copy of itself. Ok, so far so whatever. Well one of the materia that you got very early was a support materia called 'All' and what it did was allow for your spells to target multiple enemies (offensive spells) or multiple allies (healing or defensive spells). It was also a fairly commonly found materia as the game progressed but that's not why we're here. No, we're here because when “raised” to its max level the All materia was (for some reason) the most valuable item in the game (if I remember correctly). If you took the time (a not insignificant task) to raise 2-3 of these to the max level and sold them you had all the money you would ever need.

Well what about if you wanted infinite money? Glad you asked as that would bring us to 'Dragon Age Origins'. In this game you could (unless they've patched in since I last played it) get infinite money by raising one of your mages 'Herbalism' skill to the max level and then crafting and selling 'Potent Lyrium Potions', an item whose crafting components cost less than it sold for resulting in a small profit with every repetition. Now it's worth noting that this infinite money system is extraordinarily tedious and has the potential to crash your game (you'll be crafting literally thousands of items and eventually the game gives up if you sell too many to the same merchant) but it does highlight the issue that developers have in balancing crafting systems. You've got to make it a worthwhile alternate way to obtain items without oh I don't know something like this happening. 'Dragon Age Origins' fails in this regards as the only reason to put points into this ability is to generate infinite money as there's nothing you can craft that can't be had for easier elsewhere.

How about if you don't want to crash your game (at least not due to overloaded merchant inventories)? Well in that case we've come full circle to the game we've been looking at for the last several weeks in 'Fallout: New Vegas'. In 'New Vegas' you've got two, non-exclusive, choices on how to go about doing this. The first is via the 'Jury Rigging' perk. This perk is first available to the player at level 14 but requires that they've put 90 points into the 'Repair' skill. This perk allows for the player to repair (almost) any item with a similar item instead of a copy of that item. Sometimes and for our purposes it gets kind of ridiculous, like using the common (and cheap) shovel to repair the rare(ish) and valuable Super-Sledge. Basically use cheap common items to repair rare expensive items and then sell them. This method can run into the problem of merchants and traders actually running out of money and for characters with a low strength can be a bit more tedious (strength determines how much stuff you can carry) but slowly and steadily you can make crazy money with this method. The other method of breaking the bank in 'New Vegas' is via gambling with a really high 'Luck' stat. If you can get your 'Luck' via perk and/or implant (don't ask) and/or equipment to 10 (maximum) you will win at the various casino games at a highly disproportionate rate and while you'll eventually find yourself banned from casinos the fact is that there are 6 out there (including the 'Dead Money' DLC) to take for a ride. The 'Sierra Madre Casino' found in the 'Dead Money' DLC is especially profitable as its payout is 10 times the next highest casinos. In short between the 'Jury Rigging' perk and being a compulsive gambler its very possible to never have to worry about money in 'New Vegas'.

The examples given above are far from comprehensive and it is also unclear how intentional they where. Are exploits like this game breaking? In 'Final Fantasy VII' and 'New Vegas' I would lean towards 'no' as the best gear in those games is stuff you find and the copious amounts of money just lets you never have to worry about support equipment or healing supplies. In 'Dragon Age Origins' I would say that the infinite money trick is game breaking in more than one way. Even ignoring the fact that it can crash (though it won't if you're careful) your game much of the best gear is stuff you can buy and is (otherwise) prohibitively expensive so getting access to all of it can definitely present some balance issues. The next question is whether or not we as players should take advantage of such exploits? I dunno. I if I feel that it enhances the overall experience (usually at the cost of game balance) then I'll go ahead and do it. Am I a bad person for doing this? It's a video game. See you all next week.

Walking an apparently lonesome road in the post-apocalypse

So this is it. The conclusion. 'The Lonesome Road'. You're going to have to walk this path alone. Except when you don't because you're being accompanied by a hovering murder-machine of a robot for most of the journey. But except for that it's just you and a ton of monsters waiting for you to put foot to ass and figure out the mysteries of your past. Except when it isn't because the main antagonist of this DLC, Ulysses, will be communicating fairly frequently with you via your robot companion. So really the DLC title is lying to us about this being a lonesome anything. That said in this DLC the writers are doing their damnedest to try and wrap up as many lose threads left over from the character creation as they possibly can and bless their hearts because as already discussed in part 1 the fact that the game goes halfway between a blank slate and a predefined background it makes that task nearly impossible. So fairly early in the main game the non-player character (NPC) who, apparently, initially gave you the job that nearly got you killed mentions that someone else (Ulysses) was supposed to get the job instead but when he saw your name (whatever you chose to name your character) next on the list he backed out and let you take the job thus setting in motion the events of the game. 'Lonesome Road' seeks to explain the rationale behind Ulysses' decision and also fill in a bit more of your character's background.

So the fourth and final 'New Vegas' DLC starts off with you traveling to The Divide, a series of canyons and collapsed highways, to “meet your destiny” or something of that sort when you finally get to Ulysses. Throughout most of this journey Ulysses will, as mentioned above, be talking to the player fairly often (and without spoiling much of anything) about how the devastation seen the region is somehow your fault. This, in my opinion, gets fairly tedious fairly quickly. That said ***ALERT*** your answers to his questions and whether or not you find all of his journal entries (scattered throughout the region) has a significant impact on the endgame of the DLC so pay attention to these otherwise fairly dull conversations. Longtime readers (just kidding there aren't any) may remember how in the 'Old World Blues' article I mentioned how it was nice to have a villain that deviated a bit from the stiff stock types and actually brought a bit of levity to their destruction well Ulysses is totally not like that at all. He is, like the player character, a courier and unless the definition of that job has drastically changed its description in the future then he has an awfully high opinion of himself and a lot of resources at his disposal for someone whose, unless I really missed something, previous job was delivering packages. Basically imagine a FedEx employee with a messiah complex and you should have a pretty good idea of Ulysses' personality. So that's kind of meh especially given the frequency with which you have to sit through his philosophical rantings.

That said other than Ulysses the DLC is actually quit nice. A nearly linear narrative with just enough in the way of rewards for diverting off the main path and a very interesting environment. The Divide is also (and I realize that enemies scale with player level) one of the most challenging areas in the game even if the player character is a walking tank as nasty enemies have a habit of spawning in groups close enough to the player to make picking them all off before they reach you impractical/impossible. That's actually a good thing. After the cake walk that was 'Honest Hearts' it's nice to actually be moderately challenged. Also worth noting is that the region unique equipment for 'The Lonesome Road' is, after the toys found in 'Old World Blues', probably some of the best equipment in the game which is always nice (except for the rocket launcher, that thing can't hit anything).

Overall I would say that the various flavors of 'New Vegas' DLC added something to the overall experience (except 'Honest Hearts') and that while certainly not the best of the bunch that 'The Lonesome Road' did as much as it could to wrap up the questions surrounding your characters origins and that while that may sometime end up being incongruous with the character you've been playing it's probably as good as it's going to get. Check back next week for how to break the game.