A Nab's Guide to..... Neverwinter MMO (First look)

75 years after the events of one of the most acclaimed RPG’s Neverwinter nights 2, Neverwinter is the MMO addition to the series and also the area of Dungeons and dragons lore. Neverwinter is a action MMO set in the area of the same name and is published by perfect world (Creators of Champions online, Torchlight and Blacklight) and gives a rebirth to one of the most cherished regions and settings in D&D but does the game hold up the bloodline or drop it into the sea of swords? As I was invited to play the beta over the weekend this will be more of a first impressions video over a review. 

So according to the background lore a volcano erupted and destroyed parts of the city and the new lord of the city: Lord Neverember (Cleaver name) calls out to adventurers to help defend and rebuild the city. So you as the player go there to seek fame and get some sweet sweet gold out of it. Until a draglich (Undead dragon) fucks up your boat and you lay cast just short of the city. The story so far seems pretty legit for MMO standards but retains the feel of a true beginning to a D&D adventure and at least raises the bar compared to some MMO stories. I’m looking at you Guild wars 2 with your in ability to finish them.

So at this point you get to create your character and you have the standard D&D choices. Human, Half elf, Dwarf, Drow (a fan favourite), Teifling and bait. I mean Halfling, and then get to choose your class. As each race has racial bonuses that can effect which class you take afterwards. The classes are few for now but as this is only a beta there should be more to come. You’ve got two different fighters; the Great weapon and Guardian fighter so tank and tank destroyer. A trickster rouge, Control wizard, Devoted cleric and Ranger. Seems the rangers don’t get an archetype to follow the poor sods. So I went for a half elven control wizard as I’m not boring enough to be a human and because spell casting is always cool. The customisation aspect is quite in depth and at least gives the feel of your character being unique even if there are several others who studied the exact same thing in your wizard’s collage but never turned up for the lessons. 

So you wake up on a beach in your pants and discover the draglich plus some evil bitch are attempting to take the city with the help of the undead. (you know the usual fantasy starting area) and a soldier says “Go loot the bodies of the dead for their clothes and go kill shit” (Your usual MMO setting) When I found a nice shirt and trousers on the body of some rich tosser I discovered the action side of the MMO as you have a dodge move. As I thought this was epic I was using it a lot to get around and also for it’s actual use. The dodge that I got as a wizard was a teleport spell called blink. The nostalgia was killing me so I used some magic missiles on the undead and skipped with glee through the bodies. 

The further in I got the more I discovered about the abilities and skills. There are three types of ability. You’ve got your main attacks which are bound to left and right mouse buttons and can be swapped out for more under that ranking. The wizard gets magic missile and an ice beam to freeze enemies which is always fun. Then you’ve got your encounter powers which are the bigger spells and have a cool down. So bigger magic missles and shit like that. Then lastly you’ve got your “daily but there not daily” powers which can only be used after gaining Action Points from kills. The meter that logs them is a d20 and I got a nerd stiffy after seeing that. The combat seems quite balanced for the most part and I didn’t feel I needed others to help me along as I was clocking bitches up until level 10 without issues but the harder enemies did require help because of the sheer amount of them. The dodge can only help for so long but as soon as the stamina meter drops to empty then your +1 magic dick of awesomeness isn’t gonna block a downward strike from a sharp axe.

At around level 10 I got to experiance the dungeons and instances available and they were enjoyable and challanging. They sprawled for a long time but not long enough you want to kill yourself a la blackrock spire and not too short that you were like was this a dungeon or just a very hard bar fight a la Mana tombs but this was also helped by the user generated dungeons as some of them were also a decent length with a decent challange. The user generated stuff does add several years onto the lifecycle as the possibility are endless and anyone can create and publish their dungeon for people to run through thanks to the foundry but I’m not sure on the limitations as this is a free to play game. 

Overall the game is a fun, enjoyable and at least challenging experiance with a large array of classes and places to explore but this is only a first impression so I don’t know what the higher level areas are like but I would like to say that it may be enjoyable but the core quests do seem very repetitive as they say go into this place, kill this guy then come back to do it again in a different place and it’s not something I would get annoyed about but some variety would be nice. If your an MMO player or an RPG fan then this a good mmo to start in as it’s free to play and plays very well. D&D nerds and lovers will roll around in everything this has to offer. 

It should be released in the next few months but you can pay for founder packages to get it a couple of days early plus some extra goodies. 

A Nab's Guide to.... Bioshock Infinite

The long wait after this was announced in August 2010 and after at least 3 release date changes, Bioshock Infinite the love child of Ken Levine, Irrational games and 2k games is now in the hands of the masses. Infinite is the Third game in the bioshock series but is more of a prequel and I had to choose my words carefully when describing it’s location in the series. But does the latest instalment fly high though the clouds above the run of the mill shooters and offer something new or will it sink back to the bottom of the ocean.  

So the game is set in the fictional floating city of columbia which was launched in 1901 and led by crazy prophet Zachary Hale Comstock who claimed that the angel “Columbia” (I see what you did there) came to him and explained that he would led the people to a haven for the pure or some shit. So after taking over the place through religion he bombs the chinese during the boxer rebellion and the US government were like “Go in the corner you crazy religious dick.” As per fashion Comstock separated from the US and disappeared into the skies where Comstock spreads his ideology of racial segregation, Xenophobia and more happy things.

Completely oblivious to this is the main character; Booker DeWitt who after running himself into debt is told to go to a lighthouse in the middle of the ocean (Let the nostalgia begin) and find a girl to bring to new york so that his debt is erased. So with the lighthouse instead of going down he sits in a chair and is shot into the air and lands in the city. From there he wonders around a carnival for a while instead of doing what he was supposed to do and after having a moral choice where you can throw a ball at a black person or the announcer, someone notices that he’s a foreigner in the city and shit hits the fan very quickly. 

This is the point where you get to actually shoot something and to be honest the controls and feel of the game so far is quite refreshing. The combat is quite fluid and having the ability to use iron sights is a first. The melee strike uses the “Skyhook” which is what most of the residents use to fly around on the many rails that link together different parts of the city. The sections where there are rails in the general area you can just jump on them and start fighting from there. This adds a large amount of variety to the combat and also enforces how open the game can really be while still being in a linear experience which is carried over from the other titles in the series. So after murdering and swinging like a steampunk spiderman. Booker takes a swig of some strange liquid instead of following the protagonist from bioshock 1 and randomly injecting himself with some random needle under the sea hoping for either superpowers or heroin and then starts to various flavours of lighting and other type things and these are called tonics which serve the same purpose as the plasmids from the other two games. But there are more plasmids than tonics because in the previous games there were several tiers of plasmids as there were some that offered passive effects but the tonics are just powers; which range from hold people in the air or blow them up (What ever takes your fancy) The passive effects have been taken over by “Gear” which offers effects like “Melee gives you health” And shit like that. 

So after messing with what boots suit him better and what colour of lightning he wants to shoot, booker meets the main AI companion Elizabeth. Who has been trapped in a tower for most of her life and can open tears in time and space but is watched by one of the box art whores “The Songbird” who is supposed to guard Elizabeth but does it really really badly because of the amount of encounters you have with it which was disappointing but the times where you do see him, he scares the living shit out of you because he just explodes into a room with his dick out. Elizabeth is a rarity in the gaming world as she is a very good NPC companion. He is helpful as she can lockpick her way into places to get some good loot and also throw helpful things to you in combat like ammo and health but her main feature is that she can open tears in reality and bring in aid such as gun turrets and mecha-washington with chain guns to turn the tide of battle. She’s also not an idiot like the AI in resident evil 5 who forces health down your throat and runs around like a retard during a fight. 

Even with the aids in combat the game still retains it’s challenge factor but does the bioshock one thing which was that there were an over abundance of health and SALT (The games version of ADAM) pickups but not enough ammo. But this can be overlooked as the health and SALT pickups are extremely necessary towards the end of the game and especially in the 1999 mode (reference to System shock 2) as having booker pick a certain spec for weapons and tonics you’ll need to manage your resources very carefully in order to attempt survival. 

The last thing I want to bring up is the Enemies. The designs are very well done and I applaud that but the problem is that the lack of variety is slightly annoying. The motorised patriot is one of the main mechanical dickheads you fight and changes it’s design later in the game because of spoiler type events. Along the way you also meet the Handymen who are fucking annoying and extremely difficult as they can send electricity down the sky-rails and also are too quick in comparison to their size to get a decent shot down. I don’t know how many times I had a small rage fit after being unable to finish a fight because the Handyman was being a complete dick. Lastly we have the Sirens which have massive ear horns but cannot see and the send shit loads of nut jobs after you but you only seem them in one area of the game which again is disappointing. 

The game defiantly shows and embraces it’s heritage through little references here and there but is quite a large breath of fresh air. It’s fun and enticing with a well written story which has become de funked in our generation but is standard for any game by Irrational because they take a lot of care on making the story work with the setting and keeps the player on edge. The combat is quite fluid due to it’s use of the environment and the gunplay alongside the tonics and gear. The enemies are few in type but still provide a challenge even though there are a bit too hard at times even on normal mode but I’d still defend this game as one of the best during this generation. Bioshock and anyone will be able to pick this up and have a lot of fun with it and grow attached to the characters and the story. So pick this up now and if you haven't then go and buy it now. 

Introductions and Planning

Greetings people of the Internet!

Thinking about doing some solo stuff alongside my group channel; The Nabcast. So after viewing the success of other blogs and being able to express myself I've set up this blog under "Full Metal Gamer" and hopefully this can expand into other areas such as pushing on Youtube and other areas. 
This blog will mainly be me expressing myself with gaming news, reviews and maybe posting dev blogs from War of the servers and maybe some music that i created. 

I guess i can start with some stuff about the blog, the Nabcast channel and what i've been doing in the last couple weeks. 

I guess i'll start with introductions with who i am and that kind of shiz. I'm a student studying History and doing game design on the side for an Indie company which i started with my friend "Ancient"and a few others working on an Unreal engine based game called "War Of The Servers" which isn't related to the film and is about clans who inhabit different servers and just go against each other in open warfare. It's an extremely ambitious project but we're making progress but that's for another post. 

I co-own a Gaming channel called The Nabcast where we do let's plays and reviews etc which is going  well i guess, We've got a steady view count which has gone up a little recently because of the announcement of the 24 hour gaming bonanzathon on the other end of the Easter holidays. We're gonna stream the entire thing and raise some money for a children's hospital in Manchester. We've got a couple guests lined up and a extremely large selection of games so that's gonna be a lot of fun. 

So during the last couple weeks I've been playing mainly some Hidden which is fucking fun because running around as mickey mouse stabbing the other team is hilarious because everyone gets really scared. I played some Bioshock infinite which i personally think is one the best designed games of our generation and maybe the next but i can't really say yet and also i was invited to play the "Neverwinter" Beta which is an upcoming MMO based around the Forgotten realms of D&D and it plays quite well for an Action MMO (think guild wars) and has some cool features, i guess being an RP adds to the nostalgia. 

I'll post my preview and also the review of Bioshock infinite up on the blog and if they are well received i can do a video version and puts some time into doing it justice through good editing. 

This is the Full Metal Gamer signing off.