Baldurs Gate Dark Alliance

 Baldurs Gate is a series one might be quite familar with if you're into the Dungeons and Dragons RPG games for PC but if you have never played Dark Alliance and expected something similar to those PC entries, then you're in for a bit of a surprise.

Baldur's Gate Dark Alliance, released for the PS2 in 2001, does away with the slow, methodical RPG-based in table top style game play of the PC versions and instead goes for a more action oriented approach.  You start the game by picking a Dwarf fighter, a human archer or an elven mage and as far as character creation goes that's where it ends.  You watch a cutscene and then are quickly thrust in a sewer to go kill a bunch of rats, as is common for these kind of games.  The game probably bares more similarity to something like Diablo more than anything else where you go through dungeons, hack and slash your way through hordes of enemies and hopefully collect some sweet loot on the way.

That's not to say that ALL Dungeons and Dragons stuff has gone completely out of the window.  Each monster you slay gives experience and when you fill up your bar you gain a level.  Gaining a level grants you skill points to apply to various feats which are things ranging from hit harder and die less to all new skills to play with depending on which starting class you picked.  The last playthrough I did I chose the Dwarf fighter, so all my feats were pretty much hit harder and die less but I did get one skill called Bull Rush which made traversing the environment a bit less dull sometimes.

There is also a cool multiplayer mode where you and a friend can slay things at the same time but the game doesn't automate any of the loot sharing, it's all first come first serve so if you have a particularly greedy buddy you can expect a few arguments from time to time. My recent play of this game was solo so I'm not entirely sure but I think that experience isn't shared either which is extra annoying if you can't get any killing blows in because your buddy who stole all the good swords is doing all the killing instead.  I'm basing this on a memory from when I played this with some school buddies though so there's a chance my memory is flawed on this one.  

The one thing I can complain about for sure is the bullshit damage values on hard mode.  When I played this game in my younger days, I played it on Normal, a time before I made playing games on hard my personal standard.  Going back to it to record for the stream I thought to myself "this game is easy, I'll play it on hard!" and while it's no Dark Souls by any stretch, sometimes this game takes the piss with how much damage enemies do.  Damage in this game is always done in a range of values, for example a weapon you pick up will have a strength rating of, lets say, 4-19 or something like that.  So when you hit something it's taking that range, plus whatever stat bonuses you have and then it's applied to your strike.  The same goes for the enemies too only I think their ranges are jacked up in hard because sometimes you'll get hit and less than 1% of your HP will fall away and then a moment later you'll get hit by the same guy only he'll one shot you and cause you to reload a save.  The game IS pretty easy and almost all enemies can be beaten hitless by running in little circles around them but it can be annoying when you take a hit and either have to run away chugging HP potions like some kind of addict or you just flat out die.

Overall though it was fun coming back to Dark Alliance.  If you're looking for a sort of brain-off hit the goblins till they die kind of action game then give it a go.  Even if you aren't into table top games AT ALL it's a fun little romp through a bunch of location severing scalps from heads for EXP and gold and it's just generally very much worth playing

Baldurs Gate Controversy

Oh boy!  Can't go a fucking week nowadays without a given release kicking off some kind of huge controversy.  This time, a new expansion for Baldurs Gate Enhanced Edition called Siege of Dragonspear has managed to piss a number of people off and of course games media are trying to spin it as some kind of indication of how horrible gamers are.

So here's the story that first drew my attention to it.  The new expansion gets released and all other complaints aside for the time being the thing that is apparently getting people all mad is the inclusion of an NPC who talks openly about being transexual or something.  She says something along the lines of how she thought she was a boy but decided to be a girl and gave herself a name from a single letter of every language or some shit like that.  Looking a bit deeper into it shes a nothing NPC who sells you shit or something so of course when I hear about THIS being the reason people are upset, I start raising eyebrows.

Just for the record, I have not played Siege of Dragonspear yet, I'll be waiting for that shit to sink in price during a steam sale or something but everything I'm going to write is based on things I've read from users and reports from friends who have already purchased the title.  It might also be worth mentioning that Baldurs Gate is a game that was original released in 1998.  There are people with fond memories of this game, it's world and lore so right off the bat a developer is already setting themselves up for heavy criticism when dealing with this kind of content.

So, how far is the inclusion of a trans NPC really pissing people off?  Well from what I can tell, not much at all, games media has just latched onto this one aspect of the game in order to push their story.  What is really pissing people off is the shitty writing, the broken multiplayer, mods being killed, shitty interface, corruption of save files and many more things.  From what I'm hearing is sounds like people aren't happy because the game is made like shit and isn't running properly.  Considering that I can go into my GoG account, fire up BG1 on my modern computer system and run it with very few noticeable problems it's sad that a fucking expansion for the update runs so shitty.

The writing is a particularly interesting point because if you believe games media then you'll be told its due to the inclusive nature of the script.  The truth is, all the "inclusions" that they have made are poorly written and feel out of place.  Not only this but they have also gone in and started changing some of the characters personalities.  You can google what these changes were because explaining them in detail would take another post on its own but it shows that the person writing these characters cared more about pushing agendas rather than building upon the previous story and are doing original fans a huge disservice by changing things.

At the end of the day, when we play games like Baldurs Gate it's because we want to jump into a fantasy world, live out an epic adventure and maybe shove a sword in a dragons face while exploring a dungeon along the way.  We do NOT want to hear about people changing genders or how "terrible" attitudes to women are UNLESS they are written in a compelling way that fits the story.  Just shoving that shit for the sake of shoving it in is not only lazy, creatively bankrupt writing but including it into a long established game like Baldurs Gate is, dare I say, offensive.

If you want to make games with shit writing and agenda pushing narratives then sure, do it, maybe some tasteless fuck will play it.  Do NOT come waltzing into games that people have known and loved since before the turn of the millennium, games that some folks fucking grew up with, and start changing shit to suit your warped view of the world.  People are mad not because you are talking about it but because you're shoving it down their throats.

Go and make your own shitty games inside your own little safe space or whatever.  Let us have our fun

Pen and Paper

So I know this isn't strictly "video" games but pen and paper RPGs are awesome and I wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about them since I started playing again recently.

My relationship with pen and paper games started in a weird way.  I enjoyed playing video games like Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights on the PC when I was younger but the idea of sitting around a table with a bunch of people role playing sounded really fucking stupid to me.  Unfortunately I was one of those people who would look at this people and think they were a bit sad and pathetic, playing with dice and pretending to be elves.

So, fast forward from my early teens to 2010 when I first came to Japan.  I got a text message from another exchange student asking me to come and play Dungeons and Dragons.  Well at the time I didn't really have fuck all else to do and if I remember right a lot of students had gone home at that point to visit family for the holiday, so I decided to join.  I go down to the room, roll up a character and start playing Dungeons and Dragons 4th Edition (lol)

My opinion of role playing was IMMEDIATELY changed.  There was a degree of seriousness to the role play but everything was tongue in cheek.  Combat was also insanely fun and considering that we were using nothing more than bits of paper and coins it was pretty intense.  We had a really good group that were willing to mix a bit of humor into a serious plot and eventually we got to a point where we were playing every day because it was so damn fun.

I played a few more DnD sessions after this but it just wasn't as fun, the groups were too serious and there was no room to be even a little bit silly, I yearned for those days with my old group and despite us trying our best to do it online, time difference meant our schedules didn't really match up.

Recently though I started playing Pathfinder with a group of guys here in Japan.  FINALLY I've found another group that are willing to strike a balance between a semi serious and interesting plot with a bit of humor.  The dynamic we have reminds me of those old days during my first exchange year and I'm at that point again where I'm getting stupidly excited for the next session.  What's even funnier is that the DM has set the games story within the Discworld universe and I was introduced to this group just as I started uploading Discworld onto YouTube, it's almost like some weird fate.

So, if you have never tried a pen and paper game and you're the kind of person who thinks its too nerdy even for you, I'd implore you to give it a go.  Find a decent group of people who aren't overly stupid but also not "my robe and wizard hat" kind either and you'll have an absolute blast.  Get your dice, get some beers and have a grand old time.  The freedom that this kind of game allows is INSANE and it's almost impossible not to have a good time.