Let's break this down into parts to build the understanding foundation first before I go and just dive into the event (for fear of scaring people away who don't understand). If you already know about Magic the Gathering and card games, feel free to skip to the section called "That Night."
What Is Magic The Gathering?
It is a collectible card game that pits players against each other in magical warfare. Each player is essentially a wizard that draw upon mana to summon creatures and cast spells in order to eliminate the other wizards.
Wizards typically draw their mana from resources from nature (gameplay-wise from Land cards) and focus it into a spell from their vast library (represented by your draw deck- actually referred to as a "library" in-game).
Victory conditions vary depending on cards, but the primary method of victory is to reduce all opposing Wizards' life to 0 (each player typically starts with 20 life in most formats). Another victory condition is forcing your opponents to draw cards, but if they have none to draw, they lose. There are many other card-specific win conditions, but we won't discuss them here.
What Makes MTG a Collectible Card Game?
There are easily tens of thousands of different cards available throughout the MTG universe. Why? The game originally came out in 1993, and has slowly been releasing cards between then and now.
For those who are not familiar with card game distribution (up until recently), they are generally released in various packages. Varying sized packages are available, but the generally the most common are called "starters decks" and "booster packs." Typically a starter, nowadays, will have enough cards for you to start playing a game right out of the box (trust me, this was not always how it was), and booster packs are smaller, but more randomized cards used to augment your collection.
The Money Machine
Since its inception, MTG became a great hit. Its popularity spread like wildfire. It became something to play, and with everyone playing it, it was there to stay.
Over the years, sanctioned tournaments popped up and it became apparent that the MTG card distribution system was biased in a way that gave some players (the ones who would spend the most money on cards) the best decks because they could get many of the rarest cards. With that... came the advent of limited formats.
MTG Booster Draft
There are several limited formats, but this article will only focus on booster draft. The standard way a MTG booster draft works is that each player sits around a table with 3 booster packs. When a drafting round starts, everyone opens one pack and takes one card from it and passes the pack to the next player (direction alternates, starting with left/clockwise). Each of the players take one card from each subsequent pack until every card is gone. This is done in hopes to make the best deck with the cards "drafted." This format is called "draft" probably because it is akin to drafting in sports teams. The difference between them is that for Magic, you are drafting the best available card to put into your deck instead of drafting the best available player for the team.
This not only puts a little luck into opening booster packs, but the skill comes in trying to use the cards you draft in innovative/creative combinations to assure victory over your opponents.
That Night
Now that I've explained everything you need to know, I can tell you about my night. I had a few people over. We had 6 players- it would have been better to have 8, but 6 was fine. I had many booster packs and no one could agree on which three packs to open out of the 4 available. So instead, we just did a 4 booster pack draft. The expansions included were Eventide, Shadowmoor, Shards of Alara and Alara Reborn. It was quite an interesting metagame because you wouldn't know what to expect from the later boosters being mostly multi-color (Alara Reborn was opened last). It also kept the playing field balanced because no one was familiar with all four expansions.
My basic strategy was draft anything/everything good earlier on, and then get as much mana-fixing in the last pack. Chances are, and good cards I got weren't going to be used. Even with the added pack, we were still playing with a 40 card minimum deckbuilding limit. My deck turned out decently. I went green/white splash blue, with big beefy creatures.
I gave everyone about 40 minutes to build their decks. We didn't really need all that time. Pairings happened, and we played through the rounds. Here's the reason why 6 people isn't too good- because someone always got paired up and paired down. We each played at least 2-3 rounds (best 2 out of 3) and there was a clear winner. Sadly, it wasn't me, but we all had a fun time. I think I was tied for second. Unfortunately he had to leave and we never got to play against each other. It's all right, because I plan on having another one next time.
Conclusion
I really enjoy draft format because it offers a generally fair playing field. There is definitely an element of luck in any card game when drawing a card, but in draft, your position in relation to other particular drafters, which packs you see first and a whole slew of other factors also matter. All one can do is make the most consistent deck- and so it comes down to deck construction. But in the end, drafting Magic still comes down to being a game of luck between people of similar skill; even then, those with a better understand of Magic and draft strategies will prevail over those that do not.
Monday, March 22, 2010
Tuesday, March 16, 2010
SC2 BETA In-Depth: The TvT matchup
Introduction
Yesterday while I was in a stressed mood, I decided to play some SC2. I just wanted to wreck something.
First game I played was a PvP, but I contained and then out-macroed him without too much effort. Fun with Colossi. : )
The second game however, was insane. It was a TvT, on a 4 player map, and took 45 minutes before the loser conceded. NOTE: all the information about the opponent is accurate because I ended up watching the replay.
I had chosen Random, so my opponent didn't know what I was.
Build Order
As with all races, the first thing you should do is have your gatherers start mining first. You start off with 6 workers now and that mining time difference is more important than getting your first worker out sooner than your opponent.
I am the red terran in the 7 o'clock position and he was the blue terran in the 8 o'clock position.
First thing I do is gather minerals with SCVs. Then start making an SCV. From SC, I had gotten into a habit of hotkeying (h) everything, so I hotkey my CC to 2-9 and an SCV to 1. Then I rally the CC to a mineral patch to start mining, and make another SCV. I keep up SCV production well into 20-30 SCVs per base, depending on the build, for good saturation. I have yet to use the MULE, but that's because I'd rather have energy for scan. Scan is pretty much the exact equivalent to Scan in SC. The MULE is a way for the Terran player to offset economic differences in production against the other two races (Zerg Queens extra larvaue, and Protoss' Nexus' Chrono Boost).
Around SCV 8 or 9, I use the SCV on h1 to drop a supply depot- I'm going for speed to macro, so no wall-in or anything. Hotkey another SCV to h2. As soon as the supply depot is done, I begin scouting with SCV on h1 and move h2 out to build a Barracks. Then I drop a refinery. I subconsciously send the scout clockwise based on the map structure, and I find him immediately. I do some waypoint evasion (when you shift+right click around their base to keep them chasing you), and I notice that he doesn't have either gas yet and a barracks a little slower than mine.
Crazy Gambit
So, like a crazy guy, I jump back to base (hotkeys for speed), put 3 SCVs on gas, and jump back to his base to start 2 refineries on each of his gas geysers. I only build them up to about 120 HP each so that I can cancel them and get the resources back. I jump back to my base and start a factory ASAP, hotkey Barracks on 3 and make some defensive marines.
The Premonition
He begins to attack my refineries in his base with 1 SCV each. At least it took some time away from his SCV mining time and gas gathering. Before I cancelled them, I noticed a second barracks. I built another barracks myself and began to Tech Lab them both.
Each of the military unit buildings (Barracks, Factory and Starport) has 2 potential add-ons: Tech Lab and Reactor. Reactor allows you to double the production of that building. Tech Lab allows for higher level tech from those buildings. But you cannot have both- so you'll have to choose: faster production of basic units or access to better units. As I've noticed, I feel like it's typically better to go for higher level tech units and research pretty much all of the time- unless you're doing some crazy rush build. This is why I did not get any Reactors.
I amass a small army of Marine+Marauder (the new M&M I guess; so if it included Medivac, would it be called M&M&M?), and a couple of Reapers while getting an Engineering Bay to upgrade them. I put them all in a single control group (I did an experiment with Zerg- and there is no size limit to a control group any more, where I had 300+ units on one hotkey; only possible because of overlords). I left some tanks at home to defend and then I started my second CC at my natural expansion and moved out. I typically use keys 1-2 or 1-4 for military strike groups, depending on the rest. I use the rest to hotkey buildings. With MBS, it becomes easier to manage and distribute production. Just note that buildings with Reactors are somehow treated differently and the unit production is not distributed in the same way.
Armageddon
At this point, my opponent had already gotten 3 Medivacs, 2 tanks and a bunch of marines. He saw my army advancing so he loaded up and flew over to my base to drop 16 marines and 2 tanks in my base.
I believe he made this decision to throw his army at me because of the early pressure that limited his gas- hence he dedicated to medivacs and tanks, and just used marines so he wouldn't have to spend gas.
I had learned from watching pro games that when something like this happens, the worst thing you can do is to retreat. I'm at the front of his base and he would have demolished me whether I retreated or not. So the only option? I have to go into his base and deal as much economic damage as possible.
I'm still macroing units at my base, and since his troops hadn't completely encroached on my production buildings' positions yet- I rally them together to make a final stand. He lingers farther away as I continue to mine. Back at his base, I work my way up his ramp through almost nonexistent defenses and I begin to attack his economy immediately. He sends his SCVs at my army, but they just melt to marauding blasts. I believe I kill each and every one of his SCVs, and destroy his CC and clean up most of his military buildings. I do notice my CC being destroyed and immediately send my SCVs to my natural expansion. I rush to build another barracks and factory while the other SCVs mine. I'm trying to bank as much as possible because his forces still seem like a formidable force. As a double backup plan, I run 2 SCVs to the 1 and 2 o'clock bases and start CCs as soon as he finds and destroys my natural CC.
I clean up his newly created CC and destroyed all of his buildings in his base (last ones being 2 refineries; late to come up, late to go- LOL).
Recovery: me
At this point I'm paranoid. I have scouted almost every other location for a base via flying buildings or a unit in passing- and I haven't seen any other buildings. He clearly had something else because he was not yet eliminated. At the time, he also had a larger army than I did. I had SCVs, a few marauders and a couple of marines. He had at least 10 marines, 2 medivacs, and 2 tanks left. So, as you can see, I was in trouble. I picked one of my two bases to start my new base. I get a barracks down ASAP, and then a bunker and 2 supply depots to wall off. I had built up 8~ish SCVs, so I was fine for recovering economically. The last things I saw were medivacs and marines. So I surround my base with turrets.
Then followed almost the longest silence I had experienced. It must have lasted for at least 10 minutes. We didn't see each other. Nobody made a move. I sensed that he must have had another CC somewhere, so I asked him "Do you have an income?"
Recovery: him
He scoured the map for me with his units. He was at about 18/11 with one floating CC. I managed to escape with it and set it up at the 1 o'clock position for double gas for a while.
He on the other hand, had a smaller bank, not taking in resources, and no SCVs to speak of- with the complicated situation of being at 18/11 (3 medivacs, 2 tanks and 5 marines). How the heck was he going to deal with this?
Painstakingly, he realizes he has no choice and kills off his 3 medivacs- which leaves him plenty to make an SCV. Luckily there was more than enough for a couple of supply depots. He is now making an income. He creates MULEs and gets a second base. After some slight security, he moves his tanks to brood around the entrance to my new base (the 2 o'clock position) and camp there. He has a better economy than me at this point.
Good Morning Breakpeace
I had teched up to dual Starports because I had seen Medivacs and tanks- so clearly a flying assault unit was a logical tech choice. Little did I know, that he did the same thing. However, I was trying to build Banshees, which only attack ground- and he was amassing Vikings.
For those of you who have not heard about the Viking, it is one part Goliath, one part Valkyrie, and one part transformer. Builds from a Starport as the basic air unit that has the ability to ground itself. It can attack air to air, or ground to ground, and so it has the mobility of a Wraith, but the attack power of a marauder (slightly better).
He lands at my gas expansion and destroys it outright. I begin to panic and ramp up production. He immediately flies in and lands about 14 Vikings by my CC. Luckily I have turrets in my base that take care of a few before they land. I manage to save about 7 SCVs (lucky number!) and take care of most of the threat with 2 Banshees and a tank, leaving about 6 enemy Vikings not able to do much. I mop them up with Banshees and marines.
Inspiration
At this point I realize... "Wow, he's throwing away a lot of expensive units." Well, they're cheap air units, but not as cheap as turrets and marines. He goes in for one big strike with another 12 Vikings, but I manage to hold out with 2 Banshees, 2 Vikings and 5 marines. My barracks and factory are burning- but I am able to save them in plenty of time.
Economically speaking, he was far ahead of me. He had a bigger bank, bigger income. What did I have? I had a "cheap spending" plan, and better average APM than him. I made medivacs and marines, and a tank. I successfully defend against another onslaught.
Redemption
My resources begin to wear thin. I know that I have no choice but to mount an offensive. I do not know what I will do, as I feel that he is economically ahead (he actually was by about a factor of 3). His food count was nearly 3 times mine. His resources in the bank were around 2000/2000 to my 150/150. If his macro was slightly better- he would have defeated me effortlessly. Luckily for me, I kept up my macro throughout, and a lesser position was able to overcome because of the enemy player's contentedness.
I had a very small plan, but hopefully it was going to have large impact. Earlier when I had made a Banshee, I sent it out in hopes of glimpses of the enemy. I had found one base. I was not sure if it was the only one- but it was worth a shot in destroying it. I loaded a Medivac up with 6 marines (max capacity was 8- but I wasn't sure why I didn't fill it up). I fly over to his completely undefended economic base and drop the marines behind the mineral lines and start killing.
He had been amassing units in my natural for a while. At this point he throws everything he has at my ramp in a seemingly last ditch effort to clean me up. He has marines and medivacs. My bunker and 2 supply depots hold the ramp for my tank to dish out the heaviest of damage. My bunker barely holds as an SCV repairs it at 10 HP.
After that battle, I have obliterated his only real economic base as his other one is emptying out and another CC he had begun had no saturation. I had an army and he just sent his at me today.
"i concede" he tells me.
"gg"
All I have to say back is "GG"
Conclusion
I'll be the first one to admit right now- I should not have won that game. He should have. But between luck, persistence and mind games- I was able to get him to concede to me. Then I thought about the game and came to a few conclusions.
There are some units we were not able to explore in depth. Each of us were also unfamiliar with upper tech unit abilities. That could have changed the game immensely (Ravens and Ghosts notably).
Next, we didn't see any huge heavy hitters (Battle Cruiser and Thor).
With that aside, assume that Battle Cruiser and Thor is too expensive to be practical early/mid-game or any game that is close. Ravens and Ghosts are support units that can turn the tide of battle, but they are usually not the core of the terran army.
The rest of it- is. I sense that infantry builds will be the strongest in TvT. Tanks are good, but they're not as insanely good as they used to be. They're a bit bigger and a bit slower. The Hellion is fast, but hardly a replacement for Vultures because there aren't any mines, and they're not as cost effective as vultures. Terran mech has Thor for anti-air, but other than that, they must use marines or other air units to assault/defend in the air. That's the weakness of Terran mech, and I predict it won't be used purely. Mech will augment existing forces. M&M is so powerful early game- and there are 5 Starport units to choose from. I forsee both infantry and air builds in TvT (assuming the units remain the same when release comes around).
Yesterday while I was in a stressed mood, I decided to play some SC2. I just wanted to wreck something.
First game I played was a PvP, but I contained and then out-macroed him without too much effort. Fun with Colossi. : )
The second game however, was insane. It was a TvT, on a 4 player map, and took 45 minutes before the loser conceded. NOTE: all the information about the opponent is accurate because I ended up watching the replay.
I had chosen Random, so my opponent didn't know what I was.
Build Order
As with all races, the first thing you should do is have your gatherers start mining first. You start off with 6 workers now and that mining time difference is more important than getting your first worker out sooner than your opponent.
I am the red terran in the 7 o'clock position and he was the blue terran in the 8 o'clock position.
First thing I do is gather minerals with SCVs. Then start making an SCV. From SC, I had gotten into a habit of hotkeying (h) everything, so I hotkey my CC to 2-9 and an SCV to 1. Then I rally the CC to a mineral patch to start mining, and make another SCV. I keep up SCV production well into 20-30 SCVs per base, depending on the build, for good saturation. I have yet to use the MULE, but that's because I'd rather have energy for scan. Scan is pretty much the exact equivalent to Scan in SC. The MULE is a way for the Terran player to offset economic differences in production against the other two races (Zerg Queens extra larvaue, and Protoss' Nexus' Chrono Boost).
Around SCV 8 or 9, I use the SCV on h1 to drop a supply depot- I'm going for speed to macro, so no wall-in or anything. Hotkey another SCV to h2. As soon as the supply depot is done, I begin scouting with SCV on h1 and move h2 out to build a Barracks. Then I drop a refinery. I subconsciously send the scout clockwise based on the map structure, and I find him immediately. I do some waypoint evasion (when you shift+right click around their base to keep them chasing you), and I notice that he doesn't have either gas yet and a barracks a little slower than mine.
Crazy Gambit
So, like a crazy guy, I jump back to base (hotkeys for speed), put 3 SCVs on gas, and jump back to his base to start 2 refineries on each of his gas geysers. I only build them up to about 120 HP each so that I can cancel them and get the resources back. I jump back to my base and start a factory ASAP, hotkey Barracks on 3 and make some defensive marines.
The Premonition
He begins to attack my refineries in his base with 1 SCV each. At least it took some time away from his SCV mining time and gas gathering. Before I cancelled them, I noticed a second barracks. I built another barracks myself and began to Tech Lab them both.
Each of the military unit buildings (Barracks, Factory and Starport) has 2 potential add-ons: Tech Lab and Reactor. Reactor allows you to double the production of that building. Tech Lab allows for higher level tech from those buildings. But you cannot have both- so you'll have to choose: faster production of basic units or access to better units. As I've noticed, I feel like it's typically better to go for higher level tech units and research pretty much all of the time- unless you're doing some crazy rush build. This is why I did not get any Reactors.
I amass a small army of Marine+Marauder (the new M&M I guess; so if it included Medivac, would it be called M&M&M?), and a couple of Reapers while getting an Engineering Bay to upgrade them. I put them all in a single control group (I did an experiment with Zerg- and there is no size limit to a control group any more, where I had 300+ units on one hotkey; only possible because of overlords). I left some tanks at home to defend and then I started my second CC at my natural expansion and moved out. I typically use keys 1-2 or 1-4 for military strike groups, depending on the rest. I use the rest to hotkey buildings. With MBS, it becomes easier to manage and distribute production. Just note that buildings with Reactors are somehow treated differently and the unit production is not distributed in the same way.
Armageddon
At this point, my opponent had already gotten 3 Medivacs, 2 tanks and a bunch of marines. He saw my army advancing so he loaded up and flew over to my base to drop 16 marines and 2 tanks in my base.
I believe he made this decision to throw his army at me because of the early pressure that limited his gas- hence he dedicated to medivacs and tanks, and just used marines so he wouldn't have to spend gas.
I had learned from watching pro games that when something like this happens, the worst thing you can do is to retreat. I'm at the front of his base and he would have demolished me whether I retreated or not. So the only option? I have to go into his base and deal as much economic damage as possible.
I'm still macroing units at my base, and since his troops hadn't completely encroached on my production buildings' positions yet- I rally them together to make a final stand. He lingers farther away as I continue to mine. Back at his base, I work my way up his ramp through almost nonexistent defenses and I begin to attack his economy immediately. He sends his SCVs at my army, but they just melt to marauding blasts. I believe I kill each and every one of his SCVs, and destroy his CC and clean up most of his military buildings. I do notice my CC being destroyed and immediately send my SCVs to my natural expansion. I rush to build another barracks and factory while the other SCVs mine. I'm trying to bank as much as possible because his forces still seem like a formidable force. As a double backup plan, I run 2 SCVs to the 1 and 2 o'clock bases and start CCs as soon as he finds and destroys my natural CC.
I clean up his newly created CC and destroyed all of his buildings in his base (last ones being 2 refineries; late to come up, late to go- LOL).
Recovery: me
At this point I'm paranoid. I have scouted almost every other location for a base via flying buildings or a unit in passing- and I haven't seen any other buildings. He clearly had something else because he was not yet eliminated. At the time, he also had a larger army than I did. I had SCVs, a few marauders and a couple of marines. He had at least 10 marines, 2 medivacs, and 2 tanks left. So, as you can see, I was in trouble. I picked one of my two bases to start my new base. I get a barracks down ASAP, and then a bunker and 2 supply depots to wall off. I had built up 8~ish SCVs, so I was fine for recovering economically. The last things I saw were medivacs and marines. So I surround my base with turrets.
Then followed almost the longest silence I had experienced. It must have lasted for at least 10 minutes. We didn't see each other. Nobody made a move. I sensed that he must have had another CC somewhere, so I asked him "Do you have an income?"
Recovery: him
He scoured the map for me with his units. He was at about 18/11 with one floating CC. I managed to escape with it and set it up at the 1 o'clock position for double gas for a while.
He on the other hand, had a smaller bank, not taking in resources, and no SCVs to speak of- with the complicated situation of being at 18/11 (3 medivacs, 2 tanks and 5 marines). How the heck was he going to deal with this?
Painstakingly, he realizes he has no choice and kills off his 3 medivacs- which leaves him plenty to make an SCV. Luckily there was more than enough for a couple of supply depots. He is now making an income. He creates MULEs and gets a second base. After some slight security, he moves his tanks to brood around the entrance to my new base (the 2 o'clock position) and camp there. He has a better economy than me at this point.
Good Morning Breakpeace
I had teched up to dual Starports because I had seen Medivacs and tanks- so clearly a flying assault unit was a logical tech choice. Little did I know, that he did the same thing. However, I was trying to build Banshees, which only attack ground- and he was amassing Vikings.
For those of you who have not heard about the Viking, it is one part Goliath, one part Valkyrie, and one part transformer. Builds from a Starport as the basic air unit that has the ability to ground itself. It can attack air to air, or ground to ground, and so it has the mobility of a Wraith, but the attack power of a marauder (slightly better).
He lands at my gas expansion and destroys it outright. I begin to panic and ramp up production. He immediately flies in and lands about 14 Vikings by my CC. Luckily I have turrets in my base that take care of a few before they land. I manage to save about 7 SCVs (lucky number!) and take care of most of the threat with 2 Banshees and a tank, leaving about 6 enemy Vikings not able to do much. I mop them up with Banshees and marines.
Inspiration
At this point I realize... "Wow, he's throwing away a lot of expensive units." Well, they're cheap air units, but not as cheap as turrets and marines. He goes in for one big strike with another 12 Vikings, but I manage to hold out with 2 Banshees, 2 Vikings and 5 marines. My barracks and factory are burning- but I am able to save them in plenty of time.
Economically speaking, he was far ahead of me. He had a bigger bank, bigger income. What did I have? I had a "cheap spending" plan, and better average APM than him. I made medivacs and marines, and a tank. I successfully defend against another onslaught.
Redemption
My resources begin to wear thin. I know that I have no choice but to mount an offensive. I do not know what I will do, as I feel that he is economically ahead (he actually was by about a factor of 3). His food count was nearly 3 times mine. His resources in the bank were around 2000/2000 to my 150/150. If his macro was slightly better- he would have defeated me effortlessly. Luckily for me, I kept up my macro throughout, and a lesser position was able to overcome because of the enemy player's contentedness.
I had a very small plan, but hopefully it was going to have large impact. Earlier when I had made a Banshee, I sent it out in hopes of glimpses of the enemy. I had found one base. I was not sure if it was the only one- but it was worth a shot in destroying it. I loaded a Medivac up with 6 marines (max capacity was 8- but I wasn't sure why I didn't fill it up). I fly over to his completely undefended economic base and drop the marines behind the mineral lines and start killing.
He had been amassing units in my natural for a while. At this point he throws everything he has at my ramp in a seemingly last ditch effort to clean me up. He has marines and medivacs. My bunker and 2 supply depots hold the ramp for my tank to dish out the heaviest of damage. My bunker barely holds as an SCV repairs it at 10 HP.
After that battle, I have obliterated his only real economic base as his other one is emptying out and another CC he had begun had no saturation. I had an army and he just sent his at me today.
"i concede" he tells me.
"gg"
All I have to say back is "GG"
Conclusion
I'll be the first one to admit right now- I should not have won that game. He should have. But between luck, persistence and mind games- I was able to get him to concede to me. Then I thought about the game and came to a few conclusions.
There are some units we were not able to explore in depth. Each of us were also unfamiliar with upper tech unit abilities. That could have changed the game immensely (Ravens and Ghosts notably).
Next, we didn't see any huge heavy hitters (Battle Cruiser and Thor).
With that aside, assume that Battle Cruiser and Thor is too expensive to be practical early/mid-game or any game that is close. Ravens and Ghosts are support units that can turn the tide of battle, but they are usually not the core of the terran army.
The rest of it- is. I sense that infantry builds will be the strongest in TvT. Tanks are good, but they're not as insanely good as they used to be. They're a bit bigger and a bit slower. The Hellion is fast, but hardly a replacement for Vultures because there aren't any mines, and they're not as cost effective as vultures. Terran mech has Thor for anti-air, but other than that, they must use marines or other air units to assault/defend in the air. That's the weakness of Terran mech, and I predict it won't be used purely. Mech will augment existing forces. M&M is so powerful early game- and there are 5 Starport units to choose from. I forsee both infantry and air builds in TvT (assuming the units remain the same when release comes around).
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Final Fantasy XIII: initial review
How I Got It
I did not pre-order this game. Sometimes you can get some cool items as part of your pre-order, most of the time this is not true. So, as my personal past experience has proven to me, if you just look around for highly anticipated games on release day, you can find some really cool deals out there (especially when many retailers will carry the game).
I had seen in the Sunday ad (thanks to my girlfriend Sarah) that Target was having a deal where you purchase the game for PS3 or 360, and you get a $10 giftcard (for free!).
So immediately when I got out of work yesterday (Tuesday March 9), I stopped at the nearby Target and purchased it (and of course before I left the store, I purchased some necessary food items with my newly acquired $10 giftcard).
Opening Scene
Now, I don't have a nice setup or anything, but I ended up watching the opening sequence on my 19 inch CRT TV. I know, it's terrible that I can't use the PS3's graphical powers to the fullest extent, but I'm more about story and gameplay anyway. Besides, there's one benefit to having a CRT anyway (see my video about why one would need a CRT here).
You open up with beautiful flowing cliffs and waterfalls and then "fly" into a city. It almost feels as though you're with the birds. It's a huge difference when compare to FFVII where you would still be able to see adjacent polygons get clipped because of overlapping each other (my friends and I used to called this "polygon fighting" because two adjacent polygons would "fight" to see which one came out visibly on top). Anyway, the range of motion with the characters throughout the intro are very fluid and look humanly natural. This has been evident in games as of late, but it still does not diminish the technical obstacles that need to be overcome to create something as impressive as that (being in the software industry, I have a great appreciation for this sort of thing).
The First 4 Hours: story/plot
I had read a few articles about this game and there are many varying feelings and some general overall gameplay opinions out there.
First I would like to say- the gameplay itself so far seems like a scripted RPG (similar to Uncharted/Uncharted 2). The plot advances very structurally and doesn't lend itself to world roaming. If there is a world to roam, I haven't gotten to it yet. But I sense that there won't be based on what I've read/heard.
The story takes place on Cocoon. The first hour or so you play as an able young woman named Lightning, a tough looking dude named Snow and an optimistic girl called Vanille. We also find out about a girl named Serah, comic relief character Sazh and a punk kid ironically named Hope (Hope, in all honesty, on several occasions in the beginning of the game, needs to grow a pair).
It introduces you to this world where fantasy and hard sci-fi intermingle (something that Final Fantasy VII and VIII fans longed for the franchise to come back to), and reveals the evil entity known only as the fal'Cie. It goes on to explain that there are fates worse than death, and individuals can be marked l'Cie- where the implications are realized immediately upon a certain plot point that I will not reveal.
Needless to say, I am deeply interested and enthralled in the story. I will definitely continue to play it through to see where it goes.
The First 4 Hours: character mechanics
First things first, you typically control only one person in battle, so you don't get the usual strategy of various characters. However, you learn quickly that there are various roles that all the characters can perform (Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Medic, Synergist and Saboteur). Each role has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Each character increases his or her abilities by earning CP (I'm not 100% sure what it stands for, but it's probably Character/Customize Points or something similar). You augment skills, attributes and abilities- but the "track" you can augment is based on the role you wish to enhance.
You can actually upgrade all of your characters this way even though you can only control the "Leader" in battles (typically assigned, but I imagine later you can choose who will be the leader).
I think the coolest customizable options are Paradigms. It's basically a "mindset" for all your characters. For each paradigm you can set the role that each character will play, and usually for a a general overarching strategy. The AI is fairly diligent when you apply a Paradigm, so I'm excited to see how many interesting combinations that people come up with. You can see how the FFXII gambit system provided a lot of insight for a system like this.
The First 4 Hours: combat
FFXIII uses ATB (for those not familiar with it, it stands for Active Time Battle). Essentially it allows you to attack after a time bar fills up. However, in this game, they took it one more level. There are various commands that you can chain together for an entire attack. Attack takes one bar. But if your ATB bar is 3 bars long, you can do a 3-hit attack. But it give the flexibility to the player to attack with various hits and/or abilities by redeeming part of the character's ATB bar. I think it will come in handy when there are more advanced enemies that require chaining spells with attacks.
A new part of combat is the Chain Gauge. Each enemy has one and it increases typically when you hit the enemy more. Once it fills up, the enemy "staggers" and the bar drains. A lot of damage can be dealt to it in that state, and stagger wears off when the bar empties.
The pacing of the "normal" speed of battle is actually very fast and action packed. There's battle that looks like it would have been FMV cut scenes back in FFX, so there's always something pretty to look at. The ATB bar fills up quickly, and if you are the kind of person that likes to optimize, you're going to be in for a treat.
Conclusion
This is a nice start to the Final Fantasy 13 game. I will definitely continue playing it to see how it progresses. I hoped this initial review proved useful/interesting.
Thanks for reading!
I did not pre-order this game. Sometimes you can get some cool items as part of your pre-order, most of the time this is not true. So, as my personal past experience has proven to me, if you just look around for highly anticipated games on release day, you can find some really cool deals out there (especially when many retailers will carry the game).
I had seen in the Sunday ad (thanks to my girlfriend Sarah) that Target was having a deal where you purchase the game for PS3 or 360, and you get a $10 giftcard (for free!).
So immediately when I got out of work yesterday (Tuesday March 9), I stopped at the nearby Target and purchased it (and of course before I left the store, I purchased some necessary food items with my newly acquired $10 giftcard).
Opening Scene
Now, I don't have a nice setup or anything, but I ended up watching the opening sequence on my 19 inch CRT TV. I know, it's terrible that I can't use the PS3's graphical powers to the fullest extent, but I'm more about story and gameplay anyway. Besides, there's one benefit to having a CRT anyway (see my video about why one would need a CRT here).
You open up with beautiful flowing cliffs and waterfalls and then "fly" into a city. It almost feels as though you're with the birds. It's a huge difference when compare to FFVII where you would still be able to see adjacent polygons get clipped because of overlapping each other (my friends and I used to called this "polygon fighting" because two adjacent polygons would "fight" to see which one came out visibly on top). Anyway, the range of motion with the characters throughout the intro are very fluid and look humanly natural. This has been evident in games as of late, but it still does not diminish the technical obstacles that need to be overcome to create something as impressive as that (being in the software industry, I have a great appreciation for this sort of thing).
The First 4 Hours: story/plot
I had read a few articles about this game and there are many varying feelings and some general overall gameplay opinions out there.
First I would like to say- the gameplay itself so far seems like a scripted RPG (similar to Uncharted/Uncharted 2). The plot advances very structurally and doesn't lend itself to world roaming. If there is a world to roam, I haven't gotten to it yet. But I sense that there won't be based on what I've read/heard.
The story takes place on Cocoon. The first hour or so you play as an able young woman named Lightning, a tough looking dude named Snow and an optimistic girl called Vanille. We also find out about a girl named Serah, comic relief character Sazh and a punk kid ironically named Hope (Hope, in all honesty, on several occasions in the beginning of the game, needs to grow a pair).
It introduces you to this world where fantasy and hard sci-fi intermingle (something that Final Fantasy VII and VIII fans longed for the franchise to come back to), and reveals the evil entity known only as the fal'Cie. It goes on to explain that there are fates worse than death, and individuals can be marked l'Cie- where the implications are realized immediately upon a certain plot point that I will not reveal.
Needless to say, I am deeply interested and enthralled in the story. I will definitely continue to play it through to see where it goes.
The First 4 Hours: character mechanics
First things first, you typically control only one person in battle, so you don't get the usual strategy of various characters. However, you learn quickly that there are various roles that all the characters can perform (Commando, Ravager, Sentinel, Medic, Synergist and Saboteur). Each role has its own strengths and weaknesses.
Each character increases his or her abilities by earning CP (I'm not 100% sure what it stands for, but it's probably Character/Customize Points or something similar). You augment skills, attributes and abilities- but the "track" you can augment is based on the role you wish to enhance.
You can actually upgrade all of your characters this way even though you can only control the "Leader" in battles (typically assigned, but I imagine later you can choose who will be the leader).
I think the coolest customizable options are Paradigms. It's basically a "mindset" for all your characters. For each paradigm you can set the role that each character will play, and usually for a a general overarching strategy. The AI is fairly diligent when you apply a Paradigm, so I'm excited to see how many interesting combinations that people come up with. You can see how the FFXII gambit system provided a lot of insight for a system like this.
The First 4 Hours: combat
FFXIII uses ATB (for those not familiar with it, it stands for Active Time Battle). Essentially it allows you to attack after a time bar fills up. However, in this game, they took it one more level. There are various commands that you can chain together for an entire attack. Attack takes one bar. But if your ATB bar is 3 bars long, you can do a 3-hit attack. But it give the flexibility to the player to attack with various hits and/or abilities by redeeming part of the character's ATB bar. I think it will come in handy when there are more advanced enemies that require chaining spells with attacks.
A new part of combat is the Chain Gauge. Each enemy has one and it increases typically when you hit the enemy more. Once it fills up, the enemy "staggers" and the bar drains. A lot of damage can be dealt to it in that state, and stagger wears off when the bar empties.
The pacing of the "normal" speed of battle is actually very fast and action packed. There's battle that looks like it would have been FMV cut scenes back in FFX, so there's always something pretty to look at. The ATB bar fills up quickly, and if you are the kind of person that likes to optimize, you're going to be in for a treat.
Conclusion
This is a nice start to the Final Fantasy 13 game. I will definitely continue playing it to see how it progresses. I hoped this initial review proved useful/interesting.
Thanks for reading!
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