The upcoming true crime flick The Iceman chronicles the life and crimes of Richard Kuklinski (Michael Shannon), who seems like a family man but is in fact a ruthless assassin for the mob. The stellar supporting cast includes Chris Evans, James Franco, Ray Liotta, Winona Ryder and David Schwimmer. Check out the new trailer:
It was revealed a few days ago that the screenplay for producer Michael Bay's Ninja Turtles was leaked online, resulting in an outpouring of negative reviews. Among those who read the script was TMNT co-creator Peter Laird, who had this to say:
"I think the script that I read is so fundamentally flawed, and -- more to the point -- so NOT a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, that trying to make piecemeal changes to it in an effort to make it into something halfway decent is probably a fool's errand. In my opinion, the thing should just be tossed out, deliberately forgotten, and the process of generating a new script really a new outline, then treatment, then script -- should be started again."
On the whole, fan reactions weren't much better. However, Bay recently issued a response to this brouhaha, explaining the situation:
"The leaked script that different sites continue to comment on was written well before I, or anyone at Platinum Dunes, was involved with the project. That script saw the shredder a long time ago. This is tired, old news -- wait for the movie!"
Ill-timed "Shredder" pun aside, Latino Review also points out that the script had a 1/30/12 date, which was two years after Bay and Platinum Dune were attached the project in late May 2010. Suspicious, no?
Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.
We may know Tobey Maguire and Andrew Garfield as the faces of your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man, but apparently there was once a time when Charlie Sheen nearly joined that roster.
"I had an office at Orion at the time, and I brought them Spider-Man," Sheen told Jay Mohr on the latest episode of his podcast Mohr Stories. "I said, 'Look, in a couple of years, I'll be too old to play Peter Parker.' And they said, 'Yeah, we're just thinking that cartoons are not the future, comic books are not the future.' And I said, 'But it's Spider-Man, I'm perfect.' And they were like, 'Nah, we're gonna wait.'"
But did Sheen really have the rights to the character? According to him, it didn't matter. "I had a guy in my pocket who was going to get them for me," he said. As for Orion, the actor added, "They didn't know s***."
Of course, it wasn't Charlie, but his father Martin Sheen, who would finally make it into the franchise as Uncle Ben in this year's reboot.
Max Nicholson is a writer for IGN, and he desperately seeks your approval. Show him some love on Twitter and IGN.
While gamers on Xbox 360 and PC are going to be able to experience all of the DLC Bethesda has planned for The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, it appears PlayStation 3 gamers may indeed be left out in the cold. After noting that the DLC hadn’t necessarily even been announced for PlayStation 3 and admitting that Dawnguard’s performance on PS3 is unsatisfactory, Bethesda’s Global Community Lead posted on the Bethesda forums with some ominous news.
Here’s the post, in full:
“Earlier in the month, we provided an update on Dawnguard's status for PS3.
“It's been a few weeks, and we wanted to make sure everyone knows where we're at with Dawnguard. Skyrim is a massive and dynamic game that requires a lot of resources, and things get much more complex when you're talking about sizable content like Dawnguard. We have tried a number of things, but none of them solve the issue enough to make Dawnguard good for everyone. The PS3 is a powerful system, and we're working hard to deliver the content you guys want. Dawnguard is obviously not the only DLC we’ve been working on either, so the issues of adding content get even more complicated. This is not a problem we’re positive we can solve, but we are working together with Sony to try to bring you this content.
“We wish we had a more definitive answer right now. We understand the frustration when the same content is not available on all platforms. When we have an update, we will certainly let you know. We deeply appreciate all the time and support you have given us, and we’ll keep doing our best to return that.”
Bethesda’s seeming inability to get its game to work on PlayStation 3 means that, according to them, the content may never come out at all. “This is not a problem we’re positive we can solve,” they admit, “but we are working together with Sony to try to bring you this content.” And the fact that more and more additions to the game are making the problem even more complicated, as explained in the post, means that things are looking exceptionally dire.
We’ll keep our fingers crossed that Skyrim’s DLC does indeed make its way to Sony’s console, but in the meantime, it’s not looking too good.
Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.
Now that the Wii’s life cycle is coming to an end - and the next generation of Nintendo home consoles is right around the corner - we’ve been taking some time to recall the long and colorful journey of Nintendo’s little, white system. Join us as we celebrate the Wii’s last few months by continuing to look back at all the things that helped define how gamers, and the world at large, will come to remember the Wii generation.
Today we’re taking a look at a few of the Wii’s greatest success stories, and also at some of its biggest letdowns…
While many people associate the name “Wii” with massive amounts of shovelware, the truth is the system actually has some incredible software to its name - especially from the Big N itself. Super Mario Galaxy and Super Mario Galaxy 2 were both exceptional 3D platformers, bringing the Mario 64 magic into space and adding some impressive gravity-based physics to the mix. Other great Wii titles we got out of the Mushroom Kingdom include New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario Kart Wii, Super Paper Mario, Wario Ware: Smooth Moves and Wario Land: Shake It! Not too shabby, considering this is just one of Nintendo’s beloved properties.
On the Hyrule side of things, the system launched with the Wii version of The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, which was originally developed for GameCube. While that game was amazing, more impressive was the Hylian adventure that was built from the ground-up for the system. The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword proved a sweeping and epic addition to the franchise, one that ranks among the best of the best in the land of Hyrule. With a touching story, expert execution of motion controls, and gorgeous, painterly graphics, Skyward Sword represented the realization of everything the Wii was capable of - and a beautiful realization it was.
Nintendo’s first party offering didn’t stop at their flagship franchises, either. We also got Super Smash Bros. Brawl, Metroid Prime 3 (as well as Metroid Prime Trilogy, which added motion controls to the first two titles), Donkey Kong Country Returns, Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, Punch-Out!!, and Kirby’s Return to Dream Land. Altogether it’s a pretty impressive library, especially for a system that often gets too little credit in that regard.
To most gamers, the Wii brutally failed to live up to the rocking code name we were initially teased with. But in hindsight, the system really was nothing short of a “Revolution” - just maybe not in the way we were expecting. Wii helped expand the medium from a niche hobby to a worldwide phenomenon, shattering traditional expectations of gamer demographics and bridging the generations like no gaming system had ever done before.
Grandparents, parents, kids, adults - everyone you can imagine showed up for the Wii party, from hardcore gamers to people who had never touched a D-pad in their lives. They all invested in Nintendo’s tiny box, if only to have a few rounds of golf in Wii Sports or watch their weight with Wii Fit. Wii helped people who had never played video games transition from these casual focused experiences to more gamer-oriented titles like New Super Mario Bros. Wii. While most gamers begrudge the Wii’s more casual reputation, you can’t take away from Nintendo that it’s truly impressive what the Wii accomplished, and how important its success has proven to the industry as a whole.
Most of us take the Virtual Console for granted - but that doesn’t take away from how incredible it really is. A Link to the Past, Chrono Trigger, the original Final Fantasy, Mega Man 2, Super Mario 64 - all these titles and many more can now be played without digging through the attic for your old collection or tracking down a used copy online or in a vintage game store.
The Virtual Console - giving some of gaming's best another chance to shine.
Allowing Wii owners access to a couple decades worth of games was not only great for longtime fans of those classics, it also allowed newer generations of gamers to experience some of the best games of all time for the very first time. For those who were born long after the NES, SNES, and N64 days, this was a huge service. Keeping the legacy of these gaming gems alive is easily one of the greatest contributions of the Wii generation.
Say what you will about motion controls, but you can’t knock the Wii’s slick interface and motion-based menus. Everything was so streamlined and easy-to-navigate, and using the Wii remote to flip through the different pages was great. The addition of Miis also brought a whole new level of personalization to Nintendo’s systems, one that has now become something of a staple.
The best part of Wii’s interface, however, was how straightforward it was. There were no ads trying to sell you something, no notifications popping up in your face around every corner. As with all Nintendo systems, the experience was more about the games than anything else. The moment you turned the system on, all of your content was right there in front of you, you only had to flip through the pages to locate which game from Nintendo’s past or present you wanted to sample. The company seems to be continuing this tradition of a slick, easy-to-navigate menu system with its latest handheld, the 3DS - with customizable rows and columns and the minimally invasive approach of its online features. It’s a format that is important to the success of modern day Nintendo, and it all started with the Wii.
One of the biggest (and most justified) complaints against the Wii generation was its relative lack of third party support. Not to say there weren’t any, mind you - Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story were two incredible RPGs that just recently made their way from Japan to North America. Tatsunoko vs. Capcom: Ultimate All Stars, Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Red Steel 2, Okami, Little King’s Story and more round out the third party roster. When the third party games came, they were great…
But they didn’t come - at least not with the frequency impassioned gamers would hope for. Sadly, the Wii saw far too few Xenoblades and TvC’s in its time. Worst of all was that when they did arrive, they rarely sold well - only further sending the message to third party developers that the Wii was not a profitable system to develop for. Perhaps the system’s market penetration rate was better than you could hope for, and perhaps the company’s first party software set record sales, but the truth is third party games just never really found much of a home on the system.
It’s hard walking down the Wii aisle only to drown in the stinking cesspool of shovelware you’ll find there. Even if you stick to the numerous and amazing titles mentioned earlier, the fact remains that the Wii is widely known amongst the jaded masses for its shocking amount of shovelware… and it's hard to blame them. For every Mario Galaxy it seemed there were a hundred cheap mini-game collections. For every Skyward Sword, there was inevitably a Super Fashion Babies 3: Babies in the City. Throw in the long droughts Wii owners frequently experienced - where we’d go months or even years without a substantial new release - and you have the red-handed culprit behind the Wii’s tarnished legacy.
This is actual box art for an actual Wii game. SIGH.
Considering all the things mentioned earlier - all the great games and cool innovations the system brought and its impact on the industry - it’s a shame so much shovelware brought the experience down. To be fair, no system is without these cheap, throwaway titles. But games like this were just so prevalent and hard to escape when it came to Wii that it seriously distracted from the system’s truly excellent software lineup.
The hardest things to swallow now that the Wii’s days are coming to an end are not the things the system flubbed, but rather the things it didn’t do at all - all those missed gaming opportunities we’ll now likely never see realized. The fact that there was never a truly amazing light saber game using the Wii’s motion controls was a huge shame. As was the fact that we never saw the system realize its potential as a perfect home for real time strategy games - using the controller to maneuver units and plan attacks would have been incredible. And again, it’s surprising that so many genre mainstays like the RPG were so scarce, especially considering the rich legacy of Nintendo’s other systems (just think of how many examples you could name for the SNES or DS alone).
The system’s tech was also severely underused. First party games like Skyward Sword showed how the Wii Remote and Motion Plus technology could be used to simulate wielding a sword with amazing precision, but few third party developers ever took the time to figure things like that out. Even first party titles often resorted to the dreaded waggle mechanic, having players simply shake the remote rather than actually using it to interact with the game world. When the Wii tech was used, and used correctly, it could result in an incredible and immersive experience. It’s a real shame much of the Wii’s catalogue didn’t achieve this.
We’re not going to get into the Wii’s lack of online profiles or things of a similar nature - that’s another discussion for another day. And, in truth, Nintendo has always walked its own path, and it’s unlikely the company will ever try to shoehorn itself into the online/multiplayer-focused communities dominated by services like PSN and XBLA. But even that aside, there were a few things Wii’s online presentation simply never got right, and we’re still scratching our heads trying to figure out why.
Friend Codes, for instance. We understand that Nintendo, with its kid-friendly tendencies and focus on privacy, wanted to control how people connected online. It wanted to avoid, as much as possible, having a situation where an 8-year-old kid is crying because some 40-year-old stranger is using inappropriate and disgusting language toward them as they’re trying to have race in Mario Kart Wii. But there had to have been a better way. Friend Codes were just a pain in the butt, and made it really hard to want to coordinate online time with friends and family.
The system’s online store also left much to be desired. As mentioned earlier, the Virtual Console was a dream come true, and even WiiWare offered some great games in its time. But the store was riddled with problems and unintuitive to navigate - and, in truth, amazing WiiWare games were few and far between. While we respect Nintendo’s decision to blaze its own path in terms of online connectivity and e-commerce, it’s still fair to expect quality in terms of online presentation, and this is something the Wii simply never delivered on.
All things said and done, all pros and cons considered, the Wii still earns its place among Nintendo's beloved line of home consoles. It had some amazing highs, but also some embarrassing lows. These are just a few of the ones that come to mind, but did we miss any? Sound off in the comments below and share your favorite Wii features and memories, as well as the ones that still get you angry to this day.
Audrey Drake is an Associate Editor at IGN and a proud member of the IGN Nintendo team. She is also a lifelong gamer, a frequent banisher of evil and a wielder of various legendary blades. You can follow her wild adventures on her IGN blog and Twitter. Game on!
No more stress tests or beta weekends, Guild Wars 2 is officially live. Throughout the coming weeks as I check out the launch version for review, I’ll post text and video updates during the work week, showing off how my Norn Guardian is progressing as I level through the 1 – 80 content, take part in World versus World battles and jump into PvP arenas. If you're completely new to the game and have no idea what Guild Wars 2 is or what's going on, check out this starter guide to get a sense of the basics.
Whether I was picking blueberries out of bushes or hacking at the frigid body of a maelstrom-summoning, zone-threatening snow demon, I was earning experience toward leveling my Norn Guardian. The experience rewards for doing nearly everything in the game made it feel like there was little time wasted while playing Guild Wars 2, lending significance to even minor activities, and contributing to a sense that no matter what I did, I was always getting stronger and working toward unlocking more gameplay options for my class.
The amount of experience handed out shows how ArenaNet wants people to play. Killing standard monsters results in very small experience gains. It makes no sense to sit there and try to round up and slay packs of mobs. Instead, the big chunks of experience come through events and story quests, emphasizing participation in structured content instead of rewarding those willing to put up with tedious grinding.
Quests come in various types, and from what I’ve played so far, at level 19, not all are equally entertaining. Scattered around zones are NPCs represented by hearts, all with unique lists of objectives. You don’t necessarily have to complete their tasks, though the financial rewards for doing so make questing for the heart NPCs seem worthwhile. And after their demands have been met, they’ll sell items, some of which can be powerful. Sometimes the tasks are fairly straightforward: just kill a bunch of stuff around the NPC. Sometimes they’re goofy enough to be entertaining, like bottling worms and fireflies or protecting baby animals, but at other times the tasks, particularly those that emphasize fetching and collecting, are too safe and conventional to be memorable.
Thankfully they’re over quickly, so it’s never long until there’s something new to play with. Events are the real highlight of the main leveling content so far. These quests start up periodically around each zone and can be undertaken by anyone in the area. There’s no quest log to manage and no need to join a group and make sure everyone’s on the right quest stage. If a convoy needs protection or a friendly faction is mounting an assault on an enemy encampment, you can jump in and start fighting at any point. Your contribution is taken into account and you’re given substantial rewards.
This makes it feel like Guild Wars 2’s world isn’t a static funhouse waiting for you to show up in order for all the lights to brighten and music to start playing. It makes it feel like the world has its own rhythms and that it exists independent of your presence, which in some ways helps defeat the inherent artificiality of the experience. Of course, that sense of artificiality is reestablished after an event re-triggers for the fifth time, but at least on the initial journey, it’s a powerful motivator, and a big reason to keep looking around the world, earning rewards while learning how the inhabitants of this incredibly detailed world interact.
The events represent the best storytelling in Guild Wars 2 from what I’ve seen so far, skillfully mixing gameplay with just enough dialogue to establish context and add a layer of personality. Sometimes the storylines can be serious, where characters strive to stop potentially catastrophic events, and sometimes they can be comedic, like when a scientist asks you to protect cattle from invaders so he can launch them through the air as part of an experiment. So far the variety of tasks has been really impressive, and in some cases even affects which faction controls settlements. The fact that ownership of territory in the virtual world can shift like this helps lend more significance to events, because their outcomes can have very noticeable effects on the game world. I’m looking forward to seeing how these systems develop in later zones.
The personal story quests so far haven’t been quite as exciting for me, as many of the characters feel like stale, brittle fantasy stereotypes. The stories are all very well presented, with plenty of fancy visuals and fully voiced dialogue, but so far nobody’s had anything terribly interesting to say. Perhaps that’s still because I’m early in the game, though, and later on things will become more exciting. Dull characters aside, the goals for each quest are well done, adding even more variety to the experience, tossing me into in one-on-one brawls in front of a cheering audience and phasing me into mystical planes of existence to recover trapped spirits.
So far, the shortcomings of the story quests and heart NPC tasks haven’t sucked out the fun of exploring Guild Wars 2. It’s a stunning world, beautifully crafted, and the diversity of gameplay styles possible even within a single class’ skill set is really impressive. The pace is fast, travel around the world is conveniently linked by instant-travel waypoints, so there’s rarely any downtime. It feels like Guild Wars 2 really lets me get to the fun parts without much of the tedious fuss normally found in MMOs.
Still, these are only really my first steps into the game. Group dungeons aren’t accessible until later in the leveling progression, I’ve barely looked at World versus World combat or the PvP arenas, and I’m still learning how the crafting system works and unlocking new skills for my Guardian. I’ll post many more updates in the coming weeks covering all these aspects before a final review is ready. But so far, Guild Wars 2 is a lot of fun.
There’s no dedicated healing class in Guild Wars 2. There’s no class you can point to and label as the permanent tank or permanent damage dealer. Every class does a little bit of everything. Combat seems to be more about movement and buff / debuff management than spike healing and aggro capture.
Without the clarity of strictly defined class roles, ArenaNet tried to prevent the skill system from getting too complicated by giving each weapon a set of fixed skills. When I equip my Guardian with a one-handed mace, I get three unique attacks, and can fill in the other two weapon slots on my skill bar with an off-hand. That means I can use a mace with a torch, a mace with a focus, or a mace with a shield. The three mace skills will always be the same for the Guardian, but the other skills will change depending on the equipped off-hand, altering my role in a fight.
By fixing skills to weapons, ArenaNet essentially created subclasses for my Guardian. As you might expect, a shield is based more around defensive skills, and lets me protect allies and knock back enemies. A one-handed mace's skills provides a number of healing and defensive bonuses, making it a good choice for more survivability while fighting enemies at melee range. If I want to deal more damage, I can swap in a one-handed sword for the mace. If i want to deal even more damage, I can replace the shield with a torch so my Guardian can breathe fire and launch fireballs like a caster.
There’s a lot of versatility to the system, even with the pre-made skill loadouts of the weapons. By equipping a two-handed sword the Guardian becomes a much more mobile damage-dealer, capable of leaping at targets and dealing heavy damage across a large area by spinning his blade. A two-handed mace gives the Guardian powerful crowd control, letting him encircle himself with magic barriers that enemies can’t cross and blast foes with lines of immobilizing energy.
Weapon skills only take up half the skill bar, though. The other five slots can be occupied with a healing skill, three utility skills and one elite skill. Every class must equip a heal, so there’s no way to equip only damage-dealing skills. Once you’ve unlocked an assortment of utility skills, you can slot them individually – they don’t come in pre-set packs like the weapon skills – so there’s more freedom to customize, and it prompts interesting questions. Should I equip all spirit weapon summons so my Guardian can run around with a floating mace, sword and bow following along? Should I equip area of effect fire blasts or energy walls that block incoming projectiles? There’s a huge amount depth to the system, and so far experimenting with all the different possible combinations has been a lot of fun.
It takes a while to unlock all the skill slots and even longer to accumulate enough skill points to purchase all the utility, elite and healing skills. As a result, I haven’t so far felt overwhelmed as new things are introduced. I’m currently still looking over the Trait system, which provides passive bonuses to support specific play styles. For instance, I can use Trait points, gained while leveling, to increase the length of time my spirit weapons stay active, as well as reduce their cooldown rates. Like the weapon and slots skills, I can also swap around major trait bonuses that I’ve unlocked too, so if I later decide spirit weapons aren’t useful any more, I can add in different bonuses that augment different skills. It’s an extremely flexible system, letting me experiment and adjust instead of locking me into a specific role.
So even though I’m a heavy armor-wearing, giant weapon-using combatant, I can actually adjust my skills so I’m more of a caster type, crowd control type, or healer type, or even a summoner. I love that there’s this much freedom of choice within the class, and assume it has a lot to do with trying to stay alive in the dungeon encounters I still haven’t arrived at yet.
The diversity between classes is also impressive. Even though every class can do so many things, each seems to retain a sense of identity from what I’ve seen so far. The Mesmer’s ability to copy himself and command his images sets him far apart from the quick-hitting Thief, while classes like the Necromancer and Ranger rely more on pets to stay alive while questing along and to help out in group fights.
One complaint I do have so far is that, despite the obvious depth in each class, it’s tough to know exactly what kind of an effect I’m having on a battle. If it’s a big event quest and thirty players are bunched up on a boss, there are so many arrows and fireballs and mystical bits of energy flying around that I have a hard time keeping track of exactly what’s going on. This sensation is fading somewhat as I continue to play and learn how all the skills interrelate, but it’s still there.
Despite that, even in my early twenties, I feel like I’m still opening the lid of an enormous toy box as I unlock more Guardian skills. I’ll have to wait and see, once the feeling fades, if all the toys I pull out are equally fun to use.
This game is absolutely gorgeous. The armor sets, the environments, the inventory and crafting menus, everything is beautifully tied together with a painterly style and wildly creative fantasy designs. The mini-map too. Maybe that’s a weird thing to call out, but it’s a functional piece of art always visible on the bottom of the screen that shows all the necessary information without ever being intrusive, and can be easily zoomed in and resized. In combination with the overworld map and on-screen notifications of events, it makes it easy to access Guild Wars 2’s content without wasting time.
Performance so far has been excellent at maxed out settings. Though I’ve been using pretty powerful machines (actually two, both with single GTX 580s), they’re by no means top of the line, and even in during events and the few big World versus World fights I’ve gotten into, the framerate hasn’t suffered significantly. Cranking up the settings really makes a difference, too, because the spectacle of Guild Wars 2’s visuals really adds to the powerful sense of adventure and discovery the game conjures.
The zone maps are huge, and it routinely feels like just over the next ridge is yet another pocket of marvelously crafted architecture to take in. From the lazy spin of a brightly colored windmill overlooking the rolling hills of Gendarran Fields to the dense clusters of rusted, spiky construction equipment in the Bloodcliff Quarry area of Diessa Plateau, ArenaNet’s artists really went overboard in the best possible way.
Even the elements common to many fantasy games, such as a seaside town, ArenaNet delivered with a signature style. The main cities are stunning, and Lion’s Arch in particular is achingly pretty. It’s the kind of thing that redeems some of the dull qualities of the Norn storyline, because the inspired architecture says so much more about the world and its inhabitants than a few stale lines of voice acting ever could. I know I can always return to this place and see players clustered around crafting stations, running between portals and hopping up its dizzying network of crisscrossing wooden walkways to reach vista points. It gives me a comforting sense that even when I’m surrounded by hostiles and near death, I can still return to a safe, beautiful place to relax, unwind, and craft a hamburger and cup of potato fries.
Though it may seem somewhat arbitrary, it’s so important for an MMO to make players excited about gathering together doing things like dancing on the dome of Lion’s Arch’s exquisitely designed fountain. Without it an interest in behavior the that has no impact on gameplay, social ties suffer, the feeling of community disintegrates, and ultimately the cities could feel more like museums than populated spaces. So far it feels like people aren’t spending time in the city only because it’s a convenient crafting hub and nexus of travel, but because they want to. Hopefully that stays consistent in the coming weeks, and isn’t purely driven by a fleeting sense of wonder.
For now it’s yet another reason why playing Guild Wars 2 is exciting, because so much of the world is feels unique. The thought of logging in again and continuing to explore remains powerfully motivating because the discoveries feel so significant, so worthwhile, and ideally that feeling will remain as I venture into higher level zones. So far, Guild Wars 2 is one of the most exhaustingly detailed fantasy worlds I’ve yet seen, not only because of the sheer volume of content, but because so much thought was put into every single piece.
What a difference a dungeon makes. I was complaining a bit before that it’s tough to get a sense of how you’re affecting a fight while taking part in large-scale events. That sense was shredded to tiny, near-invisible bits as I stepped into the Ascalonian Catacombs. This dungeon doesn’t unlock until level 30, so any who enter already have a pretty good feel for their class anyway, but throughout the few hours I spent slashing and dying and casting and dying and then dying again, I felt I learned more about the Guardian’s skills and how they’re best used together than I had the entirety of the prior leveling experience.
Initially it was total chaos. First off, our group had connection issues as we tried to hop between overflow servers and home servers in order to all arrive in the Catacombs. Once that hassle was all sorted out, we set out to take down the first few enemies. I expected them to be pushovers. They wiped our entire group in seconds. They were not trash mobs in the traditional sense, they were lethal, aggressive, and difficult to predict.
I’m still getting a sense of how the aggro mechanics work, but mobs would often switch their focus instead of stick to certain targets. The result was all in the group had to stay mobile, watch for incoming attacks, and always have a dodge ready to jump out of the way of a mace swing or magical area of effect blast. The enemies also hit hard, really hard. Even minor enemies were capable of two or three-shotting my level 30 Guardian. I quickly learned that standing still was guaranteed death, much like sloppy dodge resource management.
For a moment I panicked. I brought up my skill menu with a sense of hopelessness, because the servers were going down for maintenance in two hours and at the initial rate of progress, clearing the dungeon would probably take five. I experimented, and after a while the usefulness of certain skills I’d been ignoring while leveling became apparent. Crowd control became paramount. Being able to root an enemy even for a few seconds had a very noticeable effect on my ability to survive. Swapping weapon sets so I could adjust my role as a ranged caster to an up-close damage dealer had huge benefits. The comfortable rhythm of combat I’d fallen into while completing events and heart quests was completely disrupted, and seemed by comparison like I’d been playing with training wheels on the whole time.
What really impressed me was how so many of the encounters require different approaches. For one early fight against enemy melee fighters, I switched to a two-handed sword so I could quickly leap in, drop an area of effect buff, perform a spinning attack and then dodge back out before taking too much damage. While at a distance I healed up (using a skill that also healed group members), summoned a spectral bow to help nullify conditions, triggered group regeneration with another skill, then leapt back in to continue dealing damage. I watched the enemy’s weapon as it rose up into the air, and timed my next dodge so I was in the clear just before it was slammed down. I used the entirety of my skill bar regularly, and felt an immense sense of accomplishment after every kill, because the degree of challenge made it feel like I’d earned my victory.
Later I was forced to completely switch skills. Three ranged enemies fired projectiles at our group from a distance, and their powerful knockback ensured nobody could fight at close-range for very long. I was forced to switch away from my two-handed sword to a scepter, which gave me a ranged magical attack. I also had to change my utility skills so that instead of heals and buffs, I could activate temporary shields that blocked and even reflected projectiles, giving our group some cover to hide behind while focus-firing.
Those were just fights against basic enemies. The bosses, as expected, had more sophisticated mechanics. One teleported around the battlefield, so that I often had to switch weapon sets to effectively deal damage from range and up close. Another pair of bosses had to be kept away from one another, requiring our group split up to keep the bosses at opposite sides of the battle arena. One of these bosses spawned magical minions that dealt heavy damage, so I switched to a staff weapon that allowed me to run around while casting a damaging AoE blast, as well as trigger several types of heals to help out the rest of my group.
Because anyone can resurrect during combat, it’s not too difficult to keep a boss fight going without a health bar reset. And as far as I could tell, as long as someone stays in the fight, it’s also possible to respawn at a nearby waypoint and run back to battle and keep the battle going. I’m assuming with more practice it’ll be possible to avoid frequent death and the associated repair costs, but the multiple ways to bypass a full wipe serves as an example that, despite the seemingly steep learning curve, there’s still some forgiveness to the combat system.
The more I learn about the skill system and experiment with its applications, the better it seems. While the chaos of outdoor world events sometimes overshadow the intricacies of the skill system, the tightly controlled dungeon environments show just how well the system is designed, and how heavily dependent on twitch skill and proper preparation success can be.
Tying into the theme of experience for everything, creating armor, weapons, food and other items in Guild Wars 2 can provide huge experience bonuses not only for the selected crafting discipline, but also for your character. It’s not uncommon to return to town after a few hours questing, fuse together your collected items and level up your class.
It makes crafting more exciting knowing I’m not disconnected from the leveling process while in town fashioning iron equipment and making pizza. I’m always advancing my character, which, like so many things about Guild Wars 2, deemphasizes the need to grind through one particular type of content to hit the cap. There’s a lot to do, and it all counts.
The crafting system itself is pretty dense, so much so that it might be off-putting to newcomers who have no idea what the discovery tab is for or how new recipes unlock. After figuring out the mechanics, though, it’s easy to appreciate what ArenaNet built.
Though Guild Wars 2 limits you to two active crafting disciplines at a time, it’s possible to switch between disciplines without losing the progress gained in whichever one was dropped. I chose Armorsmithing and Cooking to start out, but recently temporarily switched over to Huntsman to fashion my surplus of logs into planks and earn the associated experience. Afterward, I walked back over the appropriate NPC, dropped the Huntsman craft and re-learned Armorsmithing. I had to pay a fee, so there is some penalty, but all my previously learned Armorsmithing recipes were still there, so I lost no progress for switching.
I know there’s an argument against this kind of flexibility. Some players out there might prefer a system where all progress is lost if a discipline is dropped, because that adds meaning to the decision process. It shapes virtual identity in the same way as picking a character class. As it is, saying ‘I’m a cook’ in Guild Wars 2 doesn’t have the same significance, because anyone can be a cook after dedicating enough time, and what’s gained is never put at risk.
Still, I appreciate the flexibility here. For an MMO where, over time, I’ll likely spend hundreds of hours in a virtual world, I like the idea that I can still explore different crafting styles without having to sacrifice much of what I’d already accomplished.
The basics of the crafting system should be familiar to most MMO fans. Go out into the field to kill enemies for ingredient drops and harvest from resource nodes, then use the collected items to build new things. To prevent constant inventory space overload, you can also deposit all crafting-related items directly into a bank from anywhere in the game, removing the need to frequently return to town to clear space. Unwanted items can also be broken down into component parts, giving you a lot of ways to rapidly build up a base of crafting materials.
At crafting stations, which are located in all major cities and some settlements in questing zones, you can then browse a recipe list and build whatever you have the proper components for. New recipes unlock automatically as you level a crafting discipline, so there’s no need to constantly spend money to build more stuff. While you can level up your class and crafting discipline by creating what’s on the recipe lists, the biggest bonuses come through the discovery tab.
In this tab you’re able to combine ingredients and items in your inventory to unlock even more crafting options. It requires a lot of trial and error (or wiki browsing), but with the proper collected components you can get big spikes in experience gain. This kind of mechanic adds an element of surprise to the system, and the substantial rewards always make discovery feel worthwhile. It actually makes finding new ingredients in the field more interesting, because every component could potentially unlock something powerful.
In terms of how useful crafted items are, I’m wearing multiple pieces of crafted armor, and every food item activates a temporary buff that gives various statistical bonuses as well as a bonus to experience gained by killing enemies. So in other words, I’m using a lot of what I make. Cooking has proven to be especially enjoyable, mostly because of ArenaNet’s obsessive attention to detail. The icons for items like cheeseburgers blueberry cookies and slices of pizza are strangely appetizing, which at least for me, adds another layer of satisfaction to the production and discovery process.
The only real problem so far is the trading post is still down for maintenance, so there’s no central location to sell products and pick up needed items in bulk. Hopefully ArenaNet fixes this soon.
There has been a lot of coverage of Guild Wars 2 over the past few years at IGN, so in case you'd like more of an overview of what it's about, check out everything below. You can also check out my Twitter, where I'll be posting more updates as I play.
World versus world combat, dungeons and high level loot in ArenaNet’s MMO.
ArenaNet's Jonathan Sharp talks skill design in an MMO without a dedicated healing class.
ArenaNet’s take on how to tell stories in an MMO.
A comprehensive database of Guild Wars 2, including interactive maps for WvW and the 1 - 80 world. A great resource if you're new to the game.
IGN's history of covering Guild Wars 2's development from start to launch.
Charles Onyett is an Executive Editor at IGN and can often be found hunched over a keyboard while writing and playing games. He's on Twitter and MyIGN.
Back in June, Capcom revealed that Okami HD would be coming exclusively to PlayStation 3. It will support PlayStation Move and, like any other HD remake on PS3 these days, will also come packing Trophies.
And now, thanks to the PlayStation Blog, we know what those Trophies are.
There are also 13 hidden Bronze Trophies.
There are also three hidden Silver Trophies.
Okami HD is set to come out on PlayStation 3 (via PSN) in October, and will cost $19.99.
Colin Moriarty is an IGN PlayStation editor. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN and learn just how sad the life of a New York Islanders and New York Jets fan can be.
